Over the past 27 months, or roughly 800 days, Facebook has overtaken local competitors in 8 additional markets and is now the most popular social networking site in 39 out of the 44 countries on which comScore reports individually. Only China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam have different market leaders in terms of audience size.

The timeline below illustrates how Facebook overtook social media platforms who were local market leaders, like Windows Live Profile, Orkut, StudiVz, Yahoo Wretch, Hyves and NK.pl:

Today AllFacebook.com also launched country statistics. One of them shows how the amount of Belgian Facebook users has only slightly grown in the past year:

For their age stats, SocialBakers uses a pie chart:

AllFacebook has the age and sex parameter combined:

Social business is still in its early days. These initial waves are about unlocking insights based on people’s behavior and relationships, and on supplementing the enterprise’s traditional view of markets and employees.
Even more value can be gained as companies restructure how work gets done through social engagement – and by customizing messaging, promotions and even products, based on individual and community desires. Social awareness can give way to social empowerment – once again placing people at the heart of business.

[...]

Tesco, the United Kingdom’s largest retailer, has been a leading proponent of social business. From early entries into social monitoring and command centers, to ambitious social commerce campaigns, to the acquisition of social marketing firm BzzAgent, Tesco is embedding social sensibilities into virtually all aspects of its business, from loyalty programs to stocking and procurement decisions.

Moms are more likely than other women to:

• Visit Facebook at least daily (85% vs. 73%)
• Have had a Facebook account for more than one year (82% vs. 76%)
• Say their Facebook account is very/extremely important to them (68% vs. 54%)

More in this slide deck:

More in this Infographic: Instagram Statistics 2012 @ digitalbuzzblog.com

From Instagram's Fun Facts infograph made by Followgram:

Why users use it:

• record memories
• viewpoints exchange
• relax

Why users share:

• enjoy something jointly with others
• self-improvement through judgement
• common interests

Users' motivations:

• users take pictures both for themselves and for others

Users's occupation:

• few photo pros
• mostly amateurs interested in taking the hobby of photography seriously

Why the community?

• to receive support and validation
• broadcasting platform

But they've also used it with the "tag yourself in this photo" feature:

This tactic has its limits:

• a maximum amount of 50 people can be tagged in one Facebook photo
• the size of the cover photo and shared photos have their own, specific dimensions (in this case, a part of the drawing is lost)

From Facebook Cheat Sheet: Sizes and Dimensions @ dreamgrow.com:

The Cover Photo for Facebook’s timeline's ideal dimensions are

• Width: 851px
• Height: 315px

Facebook will take the centre of the image and cut it out accordingly. You can later adjust the horizontal (landscape images) or vertical (portrait images) position of the picture.

• Width: 403px
• Height: 403px

"Presentations are one of the main ways in which professionals capture and share their experiences and knowledge, which in turn helps shape their professional identity," said LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner. "These presentations also enable professionals to discover new connections and gain the insights they need to become more productive and successful in their careers, aligning perfectly with LinkedIn's mission and helping us deliver even more value for our members. We're very excited to welcome the SlideShare team to LinkedIn."

More, obviously, in this SlideShare deck uploaded by LinkedIn:

One of the LinkedIn Applications I highly recommend in The Conversity Model is the SlideShare application:

A perfect match. SlideShare is an on-line hosting service for your PowerPoint and keynote slides. LinkedIn’s  SlideShare application not only allows you to view the presentations of all your connections, but also helps you to identify experts for certain industries and topics. Most importantly, it allows you to reinforce your professional reputation and brand by embedding SlideShare presentations in your LinkedIn profile to feature your portfolio and work.

What is SlideShare?

Founded in 2006, SlideShare is a leading professional content sharing community. Professionals can upload content for free, discover people through content, and content through people. SlideShare brings presentations, documents and videos to life on the web for professionals to discover and share. Premium social content marketing subscriptions enable professionals and brands to gain social media engagement and generate sales leads. The company is based in San Francisco, Calif.

Some facts and figures about SlideShare (source is Google Ad Planner unless stated differently):

• Founded in October 2006
• Unique visitors:
• Belgium: 53K
• global: 26M, "nearly 29M" (source: Comscore)
• Presentations uploaded so far: 9M (source: SlideShare Press Center)
• Presentations embedded so far: 7.4M across 1.4M unique domains (source: SlideShare Press Center)
• Reach of online population:
• Belgium: 0.6%
• global: 1.4%
• Page views
• Belgium: 570K
• global: 140M
• Avg time on site
• Belgium: 6:40
• global: 6:00

Any of your Facebook friends can add you to any group without your consent or knowledge at any time. [...]
When you create a group, you also have the option to pull Facebook friends into your newly formed group without contacting them first. Recall, though, when doing so, how easy it is for uninterested parties to quit groups on a whim. Avoid having your members leave by not posting an endless stream of spammy-ish non-information updates.

Do you defriend or even block Facebook friends for being pulled into a Facebook Group you never wanted to join?

Some of the highlights from this report:

The Auto industry - especially BMW, Ferrari and Mercedes Benz - is the most engaging industry on Facebook (0.207%) with the biggest quarterly fan growth (up to 62%!). “What Makes Car Brands So Cool In Social Media sums up the brands’ efforts to create appealing visuals, engage local communities and launch effective posting strategies with a huge impact on the overall Facebook success.

Alcohol brands (like Heineken and Jack Daniel's) have also been investing a great amount of energy into social marketing and innovative ways of communicating their products online in the last quarter. Heineken is the industry leader with more than 6M Fans and a growth of 23% each quarter. Bacardi rum has been growing even faster and celebrating 150 years of “Mixing up the party” this year.

More where this came from: Global Report [.png]

More in this infographic by intel: