Month: May 2011

The Memorial Day #summersongs playlist

Over the weekend, I asked Twitter followers to help me come up with a playlist for Memorial Day to officially kick off the summer season. We tagged our suggestions using the hashtag #summersongs and came up with dozens of great suggestions — enough for not one, but two amazing Grooveshark playlists for your listening pleasure. So, even if you’re working away in your office or cubicle this summer, at least you’ll have some tunes to remind you of a simpler time.

So have a listen to this amazing two-volume set:

  • #summersongs 2011, Vol. 1 — featuring the work of Mungo Jerry, Blue Cheer, Bananarama, Ryan Adams, Fresh Prince, Lovin’ Spoonful, Grateful Dead, Soul Asylum and more.
  • #summersongs 2011, Vol. 2 — featuring tunes by The Modern Lovers, B 52s, Tears for Fears, Madonna, Weezer, Journey, Sex Pistols and more.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. The result is an interesting, eclectic mix. Happy Memorial Day, everyone.

The rise of the super socials

superman-shieldSocial media strategist Jay Baer has come up with an interesting label for social media power users that I hope will stick. He calls them “super socials,” and as far as labels go, I think it’s a pretty good one.

Baer uses the term in his post 9 Surprising New Facts About Social Media in America, in which he shares a quick review of a new report about social media use. Baer reviewed Social Habit II, a new report from Edison Research and Arbitron that should be available soon.

Some of Baer’s conclusions weren’t all that shocking. The fact that the majority of Americans now use one or more social networks is no surprise. Nor was the news that Twitter, my social network of choice, is a thin sliver of the social media pie.

But the interesting thing to me was Baer’s fourth point, “The Emergence of the Super Socials.”

One-third of Americans with a profile on a social network, use those sites several times per day or more. This group of “super socials” (my label, not Edison’s) numbers 46 million, and increase of almost 20% in one year.

At least one table from the Social Habit II report calls super socials “Habitual Social Networkers,” so you can see why I prefer Baer’s term. It makes my use of social media sound less pathological.

Baer further defines super socials as:

  • In love with Twitter. They’re three times more active on Twitter than the total population.
  • In love with their smart phones. Fifty-six percent of super socials use smart phones, as opposed to 31 percent of the total population surveyed in this study.
  • More connected to brands via social media than the general population.

I think I fit the definition pretty well, although I’m not as connected to brands via social media than other super socials I know.

Based on this data, are you a super social?