A few weeks back the SEC (The Securities and Exchange Commission) ruled that public companies were now free to release their important information though social media channels. Since this ruling there has been a debate in the investment community as to what this means for the future of the industry. Some welcome the use of social media while others are continuing to lobby that the way things were worked just fine.

Because of this debate, we took to the street, Wall Street, to ask the people that this ruling will affect what they thought. We surveyed stock brokers, financial and market analysts, financial advisors, individual traders and fund managers, and made their results into the infographic below.

What we learned by doing this was that Wall Street, and investor relations in general, is changing. As the younger generation that embraces technology is coming into power in the workplace, we found that they are also the new workforce that embraces social media. And for more than just keeping in touch with friends.

We found that the investment crowd under 40 support the SEC’s decision to allow the distribution of information through social media. In fact, 60% of those surveyed and were under 40 said that they regularly consult social channels to research investments. But it’s not just the under 40 crowd. 40% of all survey respondents said that they were using social media to find information.

We also found that 49% of our responders companies blocked social media from the workplace, making it hard for them to use it as a source while at work. However, 48% of those people said that they had witnessed colleagues using personal devices, like a smartphone or tablet, to consult social media for investment information anyways.

It appears that the younger generation of investors is rewriting how business is done, and social seems to be part of it.

What do you think?

This past Sunday while you were curled up on your couch with Twitter in your hand and the Academy Awards on your TV, we were hard at work. We spent all night watching what the world had to say about the Oscars. From the red carpet to the best picture award, we saw it all. And today, we want to show you what we found.

First, we tracked the red carpet ceremony to see which celebrities and fashions were generating the most talk. Three glorious hours of finding out who was wearing what and then judging them. As soon as the red carpet ceremonies ended we took a look at the Twitter conversations that happened around it and put together the following infographic. In those three hours we found 403,862 tweets about the red carpet (this is not including tweets that only mentioned the Oscars and not the red carpet). From those tweets we were able to determine that the public at large thought that Jennifer Lawrence in her Dior Haute Couture and Bradley Cooper in Tom Ford were the best dressed woman and man, respectively, of the night. We also found that viewers at home weren’t huge fans of what Anne Hathaway decided to wear. You’ll also find some social media savvy bands, the top hashtags used around the red carpet and that women out tweeted men 69% to 31% when talking about the red carpet.

But we didn’t stop there.

Our amazing Marketwire Reports team put together a full report around the 6.4 million tweets about the actual Academy Awards show. Inside this report you’ll find an analysis of almost everything that people were talking about during the Oscars. In this report you’ll find what people were talking positively and negatively about around the show. You’ll also find out that the highlight moment of the evening was when Michelle Obama presented the Best Picture award, which generated over 85,000 tweets per second. We’ll show you the talk around the #BestDressed hashtag. As well, we looked at the amount of conversation and sentiment around the Best Picture nominees leading up to Oscar night. Take a flip through the report below to see even more info from social media around the Oscars.

Does any of this information surprise you? We want to hear your thoughts in the comments.

I promise, this is the last you’ll probably hear about the Super Bowl, but we have something so great that we have to share it. Our fantastic Marketwire Reports team has put together a deep analysis of how Twitter played a role in this year’s Super Bowl.

Below you’ll find our Super Bowl XLVII Twitter Mention Report. Inside this report we’ve taken a look at the over 24 million tweets that we found associated with Sunday’s big game. We’ve gone through all of the tweets and broken them down so you can see what people were talking about in relation to the game, the teams, the halftime show and, of course, the commercials.

Inside the report we’ll show you:

• A breakdown of what the 24 million Super Bowl tweets were about
• The most used hashtags during the game
• What people talked about positively and negatively during the game
• How Beyonce was the single biggest talked about “event” of the entire Super Bowl
• How the Twitter followers of both the Ravens and the 49ers grew exponentially on game day
• How being “always on” helped get Oreo and Tide get over 100 million Twitter impressions
• Some of the most retweeted tweets about the game
• And much more

From MarkBlevis.com

Mark Blevis analyses the social space using Sysomos’ MAP and Heartbeat tools. He took a look at the Idle  No More movement for the week of January 13-19, part of his monitoring since December 23. Here’s what he has to say:

“Despite a week of continued momentum, media interest and online chatter, and much hype around the National Day of Protest, Idle No More posted a significant drop in online activity between January 13 and 19.”

You can see the full analysis and how Blevis used Sysomos Heartbeat to analyze the data at this link.

Community managers are becoming a big part of most brands’ communication and marketing teams. Over the years we’ve seen this role expand from just a few companies to almost any company that has an online presence. Not that online dealings are the only thing a community manager is charged with, but in today’s online economy, the online aspect does play a huge role.

But don’t let me tell you what a community manager should or shouldn’t be (even though I’ve been doing it for a few years myself). We actually want to know your thoughts on being a community manager.

Today we’re happy to tell you that we’ve teamed up with TheCommunityManager.com in preparation for Community Manager Appreciation Day (which is coming up on January 28th). On Community Manager Appreciation Day (#CMAD) we want to release an ebook on thoughts, tips and advice about being a community manager and we want your help to populate it.

Below is a link to a survey that we’re asking community managers to fill out so we can highlight you and your thoughts on being a great community manager. It’s not long, only about 7 questions, and would greatly help us, TheCommunityManager.com and your fellow community of community managers. So, if you’re a community manager, please take a few mins to fill out the survey.

Even if you’re not a community manager but you know one (maybe a friend, a colleague, a person behind a brand’s Twitter profile that you love talking to) please pass this along to them.

CLICK HERE TO FILL OUT

THE COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT SURVEY

Thank you in advance and we’re really looking forward to seeing your responses!

We’ll also be sure to alert you when we release the ebook on Community Manager Appreciation Day.

Our latest round-up has some good stuff to help your social media planning and your small business.

Mark Evans asks on the Sysomos blog whether social media equals social sales. He explains that brands aren’t transparent about why they use social media and perhaps it’s time to readjust the return on social investment.  (more…)

The year is almost done so let’s take a look back at what you wanted to know from us and a few tips to get you ready for 2013.

How is your technology? Mark Evans takes a look at when to upgrade your hardware. 

He also offers some tips on how to stay savvy with your social media plans.

Speaking of social media savvy, one of the best campaigns run in 2012 was  f the RedBull Stratos space jump with Felix Baumgartner.

How good was it? We used Sysomos’ MAP tool to track the worldwide response.

MAP was also used by Mark Blevis to track the social media buzz around the US Elections.

Also on our greatest hits’ list is our webinar on How to Get Journalists to Call You. Lisa Elia, founder and CEO of Lisa Elia Public Relations took us through tips on how to lay the proper groundwork so journalists and bloggers are motivated to call publicists.

Our top searches included how to write a boilerplate and how to use a boilerplate to tell your company’s story. Many people looked up how to write a press release, how to write a press release for journalists, and how to write a social  media press release.

Enjoy the last four days of 2012!

This appeared on our Small Business blog but because it’s always relevant (and good) we’re putting it here as well:

By Mark Evans

The year is almost over and it’s time again for end-of-year lists. This one is most interesting for anyone in business, small or large. It’s a round up of social media blunders by big US corporations.

In the 7 Worst Tweets of 2012, Inc. outlines the big mistakes of the year and how they can be fixed.

While the stories are hilarious or worrisome, the solutions are a bit too high-end for a small business. But there are lessons to be learned that you can adapt for your own company. Here’s five ways you can avert social media faux pas: (more…)

We received amazing feedback on our last Sysomos Industry Insider which took a look at the fast food industry. Our second Sysomos Industry Insider takes a look at the more than one billion smartphones in use around the world. (more…)

By Anita Saidi, Senior Editor, Los Angeles

As hard financial times put a strain on many small- to medium-sized businesses, the publicity budgets seem to get smaller and smaller. So how does a small company get the most ‘bang for their buck?’ The answer to this question is not necessarily simple, but there are tools that can be utilized to stamp a company’s Social Media footprint on consumers, without the need for a huge advertising budget. (more…)

This week on the Small Business blog, we’re talking the holidays. Tannette Johnson-Elie takes a look at how to gear up for the holidays.

If you’re not ready for the holidays just yet, entrepreneur Brett Markinson discusses fear can lead to “entrepreneuritis” while Mark Evans takes us through the Cloud and the tools that can help your business.

On the Sysomos blog, Mark Evans shows how Reddit can help you market your product.

Of course, don’t forget to read our MOvember article to see what people are saying about facial fuzz.

Update: Sheldon Levine updates us on the latest MOvember  news.

MOvember is here:  30 totally inspiring, fantastically fun days to sport a moustache and raise money and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer.  Our own Sheldon Levine (@40deuce) takes a look at who’s saying what about MOvember across the social web and lays down the challenge to take part in this great cause by sporting your own ‘stache or donating to the Marketwire MOvember network.

(more…)

By Eugene Borisenko, Senior Account Executive – Chicago

Nick Marshall, a successful ad exec from Chicago, woke up one morning and realized he could hear what women were thinking.  He was exposed to the full array of inner workings of female brains, no matter if they were strangers, colleagues or family members.  In plain speak, Nick asuddenly became witness to a real-time stream of unstructured verbatim data from about half of the world’s population.

This scenario is a plot of What Women Want, a romantic comedy starring Mel Gibson, released in 2001.  To some extent, the situation is similar to where many companies found themselves during the advent of social media, witnessing an entire new dimension of data pertaining to their businesses without much of a plan of how to utilize the multitude of social conversations in the cyber space. (more…)

By Anna Jeon, guest blogger and recent attendee at Social Media Week.

“Hire for passion, train for skills.”

This was one of social media strategist and author Jay Baer’s many recommendations when considering candidates to fill a community manager or social media coordinator position. (more…)

By Mark Evans

Is Google+ worth your time?

It’s a question many brands and individuals have probably been asking since the service was launched in July, 2011 after more than a year of work behind the scenes.

On the surface, it seems that Google+ has been a huge success with more than 100 million “active” investors among the 400 million people who have signed up for the service, which lets people share information and communicate with friends and business colleagues.

Even so, there seems to be ambivalence about Google+, which Google describes as a  “social layer” that sits on top of its other services – as opposed to a social network. (more…)

By Alex Hoag, Account Executive

Most mornings I start off spending a couple minutes combing through my Twitter feed. I am always finding fresh content that evokes new conversation topics to use when reaching out to potential customers. Recently, I came a across a three part series, written by Don Peppers (@DonPeppers), published by Fast Company, regarding customer service. Each article took a stab at ways to embrace customer service and inspired me to write about the importance of a consistent communication system. (more…)

Mm…burgers…

In all seriousness, you can download an excellent report on the state of the fast food industry when you go to our Sysomos blog:

The global fast food business is worth more than $200 billion.  Our free Fast Food Industry Insider digs into social media conversations to discover who’s winning (and losing) the burger wars. Get the social intelligence you need for any industry with Heartbeat powered by Sysomos and give yourself a powerful competitive advantage.

You can download and read it here.

Social media, digital analyst and public affairs expert Mark Blevis loves using Sysomos MAP and Heartbeat to discover what people are talking about in the social space. His blog looks at what’s currently going on, whether it be Quebec politics, the one-year anniversary of Jack Layton’s death or the US elections.

From his blog:

A lot has been written about the role of digital in the current US election, and how it differs from 2008. There are many media pieces and blog posts about which candidate is out-digitizing the others, and others which look at which candidate is the most talked about.

What about issues?

I’ve been using Marketwire/Sysomos Heartbeat to capture and analyze online chatter about the US election and using manually selected keywords to identify key election-related conversations. Based on my analysis, I’ve identified the top six most-discussed election issues during the first 19 days of this month… find out the top six most-discussed elections issues at Mark’s blog.

By Adam Lovinus, Associate Editor

The Marketwire SEO Analyzer measures how well you’ve incorporated your SEO strategy into your latest press release.

Journalists and investors rely on search engines for information gathering. This is why modern press releases should be written with SEO in mind, so that your news has maximum visibility and relevance for those who are looking for it. The cornerstone of producing content that indexes on internet searches is to target a specific keyword phrase, and work it in at five key points throughout the press release — the headline, first paragraph, multimedia elements, embedded URLs, and the backend of the release.

(more…)

If you haven’t heard, pop princess and sk8ter boi fan Avirl Lavigne and Chad Kroeger of Nickelback are engaged. The musicians were collaborating and dating and Kroeger proposed after six months. This has caused some buzz on Twitter as Canadians went, “What? Seriously?” and then started the inevitable CanCon/Complicated/Nickelback jokes. (more…)