Some data hit the interwebs last week breaking down recent trends in corporate social media use. With the amount of time we spend working with and talking about social media, it’s easy to forget not everyone thinks these tehcniques are valuable and is willing to integrate them into a larger corporate strategy. The good news is, that according to Burson-Marsteller,  most Fortune Global 100 companies are using social media platforms.

It reported Twitter as the most popular, with 65% of the largest 100 international companies having active accounts, compared with 54% on Facebook, 50% on YouTube, and just 33% with corporate blogs. That pattern was reversed in Asia. More businesses there were likely to rely on corporate blogs than Facebook pages or Twitter. The study also showed that only 20% of these companies use a combination of these platforms together.

So, progress has been made: businesses have tried these tools and sticking with them long term. The remaining challenge, then, is for companies to find a comprehensive and definitive way of defining and measuring success. That’s where Paul Gillin comes in.

Since December, Paul Gillin has been conducting his own study on multi-channel social media strategies. His quick findings are that:

• The metrics companies are using are all over the map
• Few organizations are taking a disciplined approach to measuring ROI
• There is a consensus emerging on what’s important and that companies are starting to focus on the metrics

What the Burson-Marsteller study doesn’t show(as an article on ReadWriteWeb pointed out) is if social media marketing techniques are gaining “significant corporate acceptance”. There are people at these companies using these platforms, but we’re just not sure how integrated their tactics are with the company’s overall strategy.

What interests me is the gap between the industry interest in Twitter and the low number of young users, teens and college students. According to the New York Times, and my own experience with teenagers, they prefer texting to tweeting. Will they see the light when they get older, or will we have forgotten about Twitter 10 years from now? That’s something for another day….

Ok, Interview #10 of the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” series. Today’s interview is with Paul Gillin, author of the
New Influencers and Social Media Speaker, Trainer, and  Content Marketing Consultant. One of my favorite “products” that Paul Gillin produces is his website “Newspaper Death Watch“. As a journalist with 25+ years of experience, he is especially tuned in to the evolving space around journalism and publishing.

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I suppose I have a knack for seeing where the puck is going, at least as far as media is concerned. I was trained as a journalist but quickly got out of general assignment work and into specialization in information technology, which was a pretty geeky field of the time. The timing turned out to be good, because in the early 1980s the technology went mainstream and I went along with it.

I got my first demonstration of the Internet in 1993, before there was even such a thing as a web browser. I knew immediately that this was the future of publishing and moved my interest and career in that direction years before that became fashionable. I also caught on to the idea that social media was going to revolutionize not just publishing but the way people communicate and was able to get a book into the market on that subject before the feeding frenzy began.

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
I have a carefully tended list of RSS feeds from sources I respect on subjects relating to new media. I try to spend one or two hours at the beginning of each day browsing through new entries. I tweet a lot of those recommendations, which generates other conversations and awareness on Twitter. I also bookmark a great deal of stuff that may be useful to me later. It’s difficult for me to start a day without knowing what my most trusted sources are saying about my field.

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
I use the Google suite of applications for mail, calendaring and many of my documents. This means that nearly everything I write is searchable, which saves me from fumbling around for stuff. I also reuse a great deal of content so that letter writing is more a matter of assembling than creating new content.

My most productive tool, however, is Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It’s a voice recognition program that enables me to speak rather than type. I probably work two to three times faster and am able to write considerably more by speaking than I would if I had to type everything.

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen

5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
Two of them are computers. I flip back and forth between them so I am constantly working even while waiting for a website to load. The third most useful item is the microphone I use to dictate into Dragon.

6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
Well, I would sure like to make it through the year without a cigarette, but I’ve already blown that one. From a business perspective, it’s a tendency to take on more than I can handle and then having to work 16-hour days to meet my obligations.

7. Habit you want to form for 2010
Doing a better job of following up and staying in contact with people. I value relationships but I’m so busy that I tend to let them lie fallow until I have a reason to contact someone. I would also like to get back into playing the trombone regularly. I was an avid musician through high school and college but put the instrument aside many years ago. It beckons to me but my ability has deteriorated so badly that it’s frustrating even to try.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past few days, Google just entered the Social Media World- here are some quick initial thoughts. (and if you haven’t heard about Google Buzz, it’s ok, because being under a rock isn’t always a bad thing)

What is Google Buzz?
Combine Gmail and the status updates you find in Facebook. Throw in a photo and link sharing, and you have a real-time update of what your friends (who need gmail accounts of course) are doing.  There is obviously much more functionality here, but those are the basics for now, we’ll cover the nitty gritty in a later post.

The Pros
- Relatively easy customer interface that sits alongside your gmail inbox. For heavy users of gmail.com, this is a good thing. If you push your gmail to your phone or Outlook/Mac’s Mail, well you might not use it that much.
- No limits. Unlike Twitter, you aren’t limited to 140 characters. Who knows, people may begin to start blogging via Google Buzz?
- Mobile. Seamless integration with your mobile device with geo-location as well. So you can see what people are saying and where they are saying it.  Fairly similar to FourSquare and those who use Twitter with geo-location turned on.
-Content aggregation. Not surprisingly, Buzz allows you to integrate with other products, so when you add photos to Picasa, share something on Google Reader, watch something on YouTube or blog about something, your friends on Buzz, will get “buzzed”. Note that you can’t sync with Facebook…

The Cons
- The Buzz “stream” isn’t chronological. For those of us used to Twitter and Facebook, updates are chronological, but not exactly in Buzz. Google adds the latest comment on anything to the top of the Buzz stream. So, if one of your friends posted some great pictures on Buzz 10 minutes ago, But  if you have 13 people (and complete strangers mind you) commenting on someone else’s buzz, then your friend’s post gets slowly moved to the bottom. Google- pay attention here!
- Giving people so much room to say something and share  something may really clutter things up. That’s what makes Twitter so good….
- What makes a Google Buzz “friend”?  You may now get followed by other people using gmail/buzz. Does that mean you should follow them back? Twitter users probably will, but facebook-only users (vast majority of people) probably won’t. They’re comfortable with their Facebook friends because they share a common friendship around something. The only thing that connects fellow buzz users is a gmail account..

General Thoughts

-Nice early entry by Google. I think Google is still in the “test and learn” phase.
- Don’t jump on the bandwagon quite yet- Google will (should) probably tweak things in the next few months to make the user interface better. The lack of a chronological stream is quite confusing
-I think success of buzz will be directly related to not how many people use it, but simply how people use it. If people start adding all of their content to buzz, it will be a lot of content for the everyday user to digest- like drinking from a firehose.
-Don’t expect integration with Facebook- ever. I can’t imagine Facebook every letting them “in”. Remember that Facebook has 400 million users, and Google only has 176 million gmail users.

Video Description of Buzz
Still want to learn more? Here’s a quick video for you.

The New York Times recently announced their decision to start charging for content in 2011. Here is a quick primer on what this means for them and for you.

For You = You’ll still be able to access content
This new model allows the casual reader to access the occasional article- the question is, “how much is occasional”? We’ll find out in 2011. The Times may set the meter at 4 articles, 8 articles, or 20 articles a month. So, if you just go online every Sunday to read Thomas Friedman, Dave Anderson, or one of your favorite columnists, you probably won’t have to worry much.

For the Times
It’s a great decision for them. After years of thinking this through, the Times has finally put a line in the sand. (They’ve been hemming and hawing for a while) Here’s why it makes sense.

The Times is one of the few, probably only, publishers that can do this. Excellent content IS their entire business. There’s a reason you can get a printed copy of the New York Times virtually anywhere in the world.

Numbers
The NYT has 17 million monthly readers a month, and 800,000 paid print subscribers a year. Even if they get a fraction of those 17 million readers, they are in good shape

Access
Search! The most important reason for going with a metered system here is that you’ll still be able to find and access the Times’ content using Google/Bing/Yahoo. Using any other model, the Times content won’t be “findable”

Pricing Flexibility
Advertisers will still get their money’s worth. If you are a casual Times reader, you’ll still be exposed to advertisements. If and when the Times needs to change their pricing based on how much you read, it won’t affect their relationship with key advertisers.

So, in effect, the Times has set up a virtual toll booth for the consumer. So, while driving down the content highway, how far do you want to drive, and much are you willing to pay the New York Times?

NOTE: Some Additional Perspective about  the NYTimes from the NY Times is here
For an outsiders view on how they should really do it, click here
For an unbiased view from the Associated Press, this is a great read