Everyone should be taking note of socialnomics

‘Socialnomics’ was founded by Erik Qualman with the intent of providing Social & Mobile Statistics, Studies & Surprises. If you think social media is just a bewildering fad that will go away if you wait long enough, here are some things to consider:

1 out of 8 couples who got married in the United States in 2009 met via social media.
Social media has overtaken porn as the number one activity on the Web.
If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest behind China and India.
“Social media is not only growing, it’s absolutely here to stay,” according to Erik Qualman, author of the best-selling book, “Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business” (Wiley Publishing, 2009), which breaks down the power of the medium with the help of real-world examples.

The book can be purchased here and is definatly worth a read if you would like to know more about how social is becoming more integral in our daily lives.

Having recently watched the TED Erik Qualman social media revolution 2 (refresh) video (see below). Erik hit on some key statistics that should make businesses both large and small stand and take note.

As another example of social media’s influence on modern culture, Qualman says YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, and every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to the site.

“Consumers carry their phones with them everywhere and this makes access to social media sites even more ubiquitous,” said social consultant Jacob Morgan of Chess Media Group.

Changing the way we live

The thing that’s so powerful about social media is that it affects the day-to-day life of so many different people with different backgrounds, Qualman said.

“For example, studies show that people now value what their Facebook friends think of a product or brand more than what advertisers are saying,” he added. “Some companies are already taking advantage of this trend.”

For example, travel reviews site TripAdvisor allows Facebook members to get city and hotel travel suggestions directly from their pool of online friends via the “TripAdvisor – Cities I’ve Visited” Facebook application.

“This is taking online reviews and recommendations to a whole new personalized level,” Qualman said.