I AM AN EARLY LINKEDIN ADOPTER

I earned my bragging rights today for being an early adopter to LinkedIn. After announcing earlier this week that it passed the 100 million user mark, professional networking site LinkedIn sent emails to its early users on Saturday, March 26, 2011 thanking them and telling them exactly when they joined.

I received my e-mail from LinkedIn Co-Founder and Chairman, Reid Hoffman on Saturday and although I was one of 1 million recipients I realized once again how dead on I was in predicting the social media phenomena. I happened to be member number 530915 in fact!* The email, signed by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman himself says “In any technology adoption lifecycle, there are the innovators, those who help lead the way. That was you.” This email also served as a reminder of how quickly social media spreads – in just a few years you can go from 1,000,000 followers to more than 100,000,000.

Twitter Has No Time Zones

Image courtesy of ABC

Everyone is still talking about Twitter. One thing I think everyone is realizing is that Twitter, more than any other social network, is the best at spoiling the ending of a much anticipated television show.

For example, last night many Americans geared up to watch the season finale of Grey's Anatomy. I know this for certain as Twitter informed me - it was one of the top trending topics being tweeted last night. It's no secret (unless you just don't watch the show), one of the main characters has had a brain tumor in the last few episodes. Plus, in the "real" world, there has been a lot of speculation that this person who plays the brain tumor patient was leaving the show to pursue movies full time. So the debate was on: Does she live or die?

But of course there was more. There is always more (well, if they writers are good). And as the plot thicken, I clicked on the hashtag marked #grey's. There were a lot of "OMGs", ohhs and ahhhs, and just generally people showing their disbelief over the season finale's storyline.

And then I saw that the people on the West Coast were just settling in to watch their season finale of Grey's Anatomy. I say their because if they were not careful on Twitter and were tempted to clicked on the little hashtag marked #grey's, they would be eliminating all element of surprise for themselves. How sad, I thought.

My point is, Twitter can be used as a real time discussion of all things - except for subjects that have surprise endings. Twitter does not know the meaning of time zones. So, for the people in other time zones that wanted to get on Twitter last night and discuss Grey's Anatomy as the show happened, well, it just wasn't possible because within that same stream were people who had already seen the show.

So, with new technology, comes new habits we have to adapt. If we do not want our endings spoiled, we have to learn to stay off of Twitter (well, Internet period).

32% of Influential Churches in the U.S. are on Facebook

Social Networking is Shaping Religion Today

According to a survey Sojo recently conducted, 32% of the country’s most influential churches surveyed are using Facebook. Some of the churches surveyed included:

• World Changers Church International in College Park, Georgia
• Calvary Chapel of Ft Lauderdale
• North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia
• Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky
• Second Baptist in Houston, Texas
• Word of Faith International Christian Church in Southfield, Michigan

Of the churches surveyed, 32% reported either having a Facebook page or group for their church or for its individual ministries. All 32% of the churches using Facebook stated that they initially started using Facebook as a means to connect with their Facebook-using members. Now, the top reasons for using this particular social network is still for connecting with members but has evolved as a tool for communicating important upcoming events and volunteer opportunities to members of the congregation that use Facebook. One church reported that they wanted to stay "relevent" to what its' youth in the congregation was using to communicate.

In this survey, junior high and high school membership averaged to be 1,063 members. Averages for college student and members in their early 20's were not applicable.

Two churches surveyed reported that their pastors had personal MySpace pages. MySpace and YouTube tied for being the second most used social networks among the churches we surveyed. Twitter, one of the fastest growing social networks right now, is currently only being used by 10% of the churches in Sojo's survey. Several churches mentioned they were looking into possibly jumping onto the Twitter bandwagon.

Surprisingly, only 10% stated they were using Tangle (originally GodTube.com), the world's largest faith and family-based social network with 550,000 registered users. And another 10% stated they were not using any form of social networks.

Below is a breakdown of the social networking sites revealed in our survey.

Social Networking Sites Launched

We've been super busy here at Sojo!

Recently one of our clients ventured into social networking waters and we couldn't be more happier! Now they are unlocking even more opportunities to further connect with their audience. Not to mention, we had a ton of fun creating these sites for them!

Be sure and check them out!

Taffi Dollar's Facebook

Follow Taffi Dollar on Twitter

Taffi Dollar's MySpace

Taffi Dollar's Ministry MySpace

Technology Transforms All Industries

Today is a historic day in the making. Today we inaugurated our 44th president.

One of the many things that makes Barack Obama different from any other presidents we've had is how he has embraced technology.

Every day, new forms of technology come out to enrich our lives - making our tasks and every day life more comfortable, more communicative, and more productive. New forms of technology have an impact on every industry in the world. Even when you're the president of United States.

One of the new things we saw during the last election, especially from Obama, was the use of social networking sites including Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Twitter, and Linkedin among others. Obama created a personalized website and blog to encourage direct interaction among the people. He used email blasts and text messaging to send out announcements to his supporters. And he relied on his BlackBerry heavily to manage his campaign and stay abreast on issues happening throughout the world - so much so, that he has already expressed what a challenge it will be to give it up during his presidency.

During his election he expressed his plans of appointing the first-ever national chief technology officer, a move that has potential to bring much-needed innovation to America's governmental sectors.

This is one example of how every sector is touched with technology advances and changes. Companies can either embrace the changes and adapt or get left behind.

Dramatic Cuts in your marketing budget call for creative ways to keep your brand in the minds of your consumers and partners. – Incorporate Social Networking Sites into your marketing TODAY!

I am always amazed at marketers cutting their budgets in times of economic doubt. I am a true entrepreneur at heart and am intrigued by the ideas that come out of us during hard times and history has shown us that the brands that continue their marketing are the ones that survive. Social networking sites today is a God sent tool for brands. There is no better or more cost effective way to interact with your customers than through a social networking site. After all they play a vital role in the brand-building process and there are so many to choose from; like MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Somewhat like dating – you should look before you leap, before getting involved with a social networking site. Please do your homework and get to understand the type of people your brand will be spending time with. Listen to what they are talking about, what are their interests and determine if your brand brings any value or is relevant to them.

Be smart about choosing who to hang out with. Just as we tell our kids that their friends say a lot about who they are. Figure out your brands objective before becoming friends with others in an environment that may not do justice for your brand. I was intrigued by the Mazda Design Challenge and how Mazda launched their branding initiatives of its 2018 MAZDA3 on Facebook. Mazda asked Facebook members to post concepts for the 2018 Mazda3 and Mallory McMorrow was named the winner of the Mazda Design Challenge. Mazda launched this branding initiative after they realized that their target audience was hanging out on Facebook. Facebook members submitted hundreds of designs and voted on the design features they’d be interested in. Mazda was able to interact one on one with existing and potential customers, getting immediate feedback and insight into what their customers expect of them and want from them. Mazda obviously put a lot of thought into this initiative and didn’t just reproduce an existing ad or video for Facebook. The brand strategy was true to Mazda’s business objective and they developed a new way to reach and interact with new and existing customers.