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?

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.

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.

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.

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. 

Speaking of social media, we’ve all read and shared fun infographics but what makes for a good infographic? The Small Business Blog’s Karen Geier explains what to include and exclude when creating an infographic. Marketwire’s Director of Marketing Lisa Davis highlights three companies who successfully use infographics in their content marketing.

Angelica Moreno continues her 4P series with a look at Price.

People either love Twitter or hate it. Those who love it cite the contacts, the outreach and the contacts. Those who don’t call it a waste of time. So how should you treat Twitter? Mark Evans offers a few tips on how to get the best out of the microblogging platform.

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!

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:

Don’t be flip during disasters

Some of the most egregious Twitter errors of the year involved on-the-fly comments during Hurricane Sandy and the so-called Dark Knight shooting in Aurora, Colorado. Many of them were made by staff members who thought they were being funny.

Small biz solution: Check twice, click send once. Never assume your comments (be they on social media, to a reporter or in an email) will be taken correctly. Read things a few times before sending to make sure they cannot offend. During times of disaster or big news stories where others, even those far away, have been harmed, avoid being cheeky.

Don’t be out of the loop

Again, during big news events, being clueless about the news of the day can get you into trouble. (This can also happen when you call stakeholders in other parts of the country, not realizing they’re in the middle of an ice storm, flood or power outage.)

Small biz solution: Keep up on the news, even if it’s not pertinent to your business. A quick listen to the radio in the morning should do the trick for making sure everything you write and say that day is in good taste.

Keep it private

This year, a general tweet after a board meeting got the CFO of a clothing retailer fired from his job for offering what could be considered insider information — and the company was about to go public. While your smaller operation might not be pondering an IPO soon, there’s still the risk that private info about your company or your clients can get onto social media.

Small biz solution: Think it through: could a comment, even a small one, compromise your business if a competitor, your bank or your suppliers read it? If so, erase.

Be bias free

When a model working in Korea posted a shot of himself squinting his eyes with an ESL-style comment below, customers took great offense.

Small biz solution: Educate yourself about words that could be considered offensive or derogatory to other groups. You don’t want to offend others on the large scale of social media, or face to face either.

It’s not just you

While it’s all well and good to read these stories yourself and be aware of your own presence on social media, the truth is your staff and stakeholders are online too and may be posting and Tweeting and our company name can get involved.

Small biz solution: You likely don’t have a big software package that can monitor such things, but you can talk to your staff. Discuss social media dos and don’ts with your team. Even bring someone in for a quick afternoon of media training. But the bottom line is this: anyone who works for you is a representative of your company, even in their personal lives.

Social media can develop a life of its own so be sure everyone on your team understands what can go wrong and just how much small comments can impact the entire operation.

That’s a huge number but does one particular brand dominate the market? What do people think about their smartphones? Who reigns supreme? Is it the iPhone, Android, Windows or Blackberry? The Sysomos Industry Insider reveals all.

Once you’ve finished reading our Sysomos Industry Insider (on your smartphone, of course) why not do some planning for 2013? We’ve got 20 New Year’s Resolutions for Better Press Releases with short and sweet tips that will help you craft press releases that will be picked up by media outlets.

Download it. We promise you will refer to it again and again.

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.

As relevant as traditional press releases are in today’s evolving landscape, Social Media press releases are forging the way to a whole new world filled with richer text and flashy multimedia components that will grab the readers’ attention and keep them engaged. All this while taking into account the budgetary limitations of today’s PR/Advertising departments. This monetary advantage alone makes a Social Media press release the key to clean, effective advertising that also boasts interactive functionalities to lure in readers and get them talking. Below are a few recommendations for putting together a basic Social Media press release that will share your company’s content with social media savvy readers:

1) Write your content with a ‘scanning reader’ in mind. In other words, make your sentences clean, concise and short. Use bulleted lists to highlight the most important facts. Write in a more casual tone than you would for a conventional press release, this attracts the average reader, especially when they realize that reading your Social Media press release is NOT a two hour commitment which will require a dictionary and a thesaurus.

2) Use Search Engine Optimization to its fullest. Make sure you are including a few embedded tags that link back to a landing page or even the newsroom on your company’s main website. And do not forget to select keywords, focusing on terms used in the headline and subheadline of the release.  For the best optimization of this product, your keywords, should match the words that have been hyperlinked in text of the release.3) Visual enhancements are a MUST in any Social Media release. Make sure that you are including your company’s logo or branding; images of the products mentioned in the release; pictures of C-level employees and other members of your organization; and videos. Nothing boosts profits more than when your company’s PR YouTube video goes viral!

4) Social Media releases exist to engage the reader, so make your press release interactive by providing bookmarking links for sites such as reddit, Twitter and Facebook. This enables the reader to generate hype regarding your company, brand and products. It is important to note that your company’s inclusion on these social media sites will start a conversation, making the process interactive.

So spare your budget and get your clients involved in a marketing campaign via a Social Media press release. The buzz on the web is waiting for your company to attach a product to it. The quickest and most efficient way to get your branding out there is through engagement with your clients, giving them the power to share your information across the internet.