Activ8Social

This week’s Monday Social Mashup features top stories from around the sports and entertainment industry including the Milwaukee Bucks and their Facebook marketing strategy, the NBA and rumors that the league is in discussion with Google to stream games live on YouTube, NBC and Chipotle’s free burrito offer on Facebook, and finally Porsche’s awesome “Thank You” video to its 1 million Facebook fans. Happy social reading!

It’s no secret that the NBA pushing a strong social media agenda. Currently the NBA has the second largest Facebook and Twitter following in the sports world behind Spanish soccer giant FC Barcelona. The Milwaukee Bucks on the other hand, find their social media footprint on the other side of the spectrum, with just over 100k Facebook fans. Other NBA teams like the Boston Celtics and LA Lakers, who granted draw fans from much larger metropolitan markets, have millions of Facebook fans.

If you work in social media marketing in-house or with an agency, you are most likely familiar with the news that Facebook recently rolled out a new format for Facebook Pages. The majority of regular Facebook users will immediately notice that Pages appear extremely similar in format to user profiles. This is because Facebook espouses a “consistent” user experience across their platform as explained in this official company note.

Upgrading to the new Pages format is not mandatory until March 10, but in the meantime, Page administrators can elect to upgrade at their leisure. In order for you to gain familiarity with each of the new changes, Activ8Social has put together the following walk through based on the step by step preview Tour provided by Facebook. We hope this helps you with your Page’s transition and don’t forget to click on the images below to view the screen shot in full resolution!

Social media may be the true starlet of the 83^rd Annual Academy Awards this Sunday.  When the biggest names in the movie industry walk down the red carpet, viewers from around the world will have the chance to stay tuned online or through Oscars’ own iPhone and iPad app. Last year, 13.3% of Oscar viewers used the Internet via laptop or mobile device during the awards show.  This year has seen other major sporting and awards events, including Super Bowl XLV and the GRAMMYs, as well as marketers embrace social media to engage and communicate with viewers.

It’s an all sports week here on the Social Mashup! We cover some innovative uses of social media in the sports world from the NBA’s new social media game, the Devils digital command center, the Warriors case study use of Facebook Deals, and the PGA Tour’s embracing of cell phones.

People have found managing virtual farms and virtual cities to be absolutely fascinating.  So why not apply the same gaming logic to virtual basketball players?  The NBA has created a Facebook game called NBA Legend that will allow people to do just that.  Facebook users can create an avatar, join an NBA basketball team, and follow a simulated career.  You start off as a rookie trying to get your foot in the door with an NBA team and the goal is to develop into an NBA Legend.

As most of us know, Facebook is by far the largest social network in the world with over 500 million registered users, but did you have any idea that there are more photos on Facebook than all other major social media websites combined? We’re not just talking about a small difference here … we’re talking on the scale of tens of billions more! Facebook currently hosts more than 60 billion photos, while Photobucket, Picasa, and Flickr combined house a mere 20 million.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and we’re back with our 13th edition of Monday’s Social Mashup. This week we review stats behind Foursquare’s Super Bowl initiatives, AOL’s purchase of the Huffington Post, a potential acquisition battle over Twitter, and a new site called Hashable. In last week’s Social Mashup we reported Foursquare’s experimentation during Super Bowl XLV with promoted venues and badge redemption codes.

With a growing trend of social media use during major events (see our blog post about social media campaigns during Super Bowl XLV), it’s no wonder that The Recording Academy is jumped on board and created its own social media campaign for the 2011 GRAMMY’s which take place this Sunday.

2010 was a major year for social media marketing. Companies spent some serious cash in the space last year. According to eMarketer, 2011 looks to be an even bigger year as 8 out of 10 companies plan to increase their spending in social media.

Social media research and outbound marketing company, Hubspot, recently released an infographic called “Social Media Marketing by the Numbers” which shows some interesting numbers from 2010. Read more to find out what us folks at Activ8Social found to be particularly interesting.

What a game last night! Wow! Our sincere condolences go out to all you Steeltown fans but then again six Lombardi trophies isn’t so bad either. As we do every week here at Activ8Social, we cover the top social media stories in sports and entertainment including the controversial Groupon vs. LivingSocial Super Bowl ad wars, Foursquare’s Super Bowl check-in, free Facebook on Gogo flights in February, Kia’s Australian Open campaign, and MySpace’s not-so-surprising for sale sign. And of course, don’t forget to vote on whether Barbie should take Ken back!

Two weeks ago, the world’s leading geo-location service, Foursquare, posted a brief update on their company blog about their 2010 year over year growth. It’s pretty impressive for sure. Of course, the fantastically visual infographic they provided which is shown below does not address every metric of growth like unqiue visitors and active accounts, but hey, who are we to argue with 3,400% growth in total users in one calendar year?

Combing through the information provided by Foursquare’s infographic, there are some real interesting facts and milestones from 2010—the so called “year of the check-in”. Read more for our assessment of Foursquare’s year!