Activ8Social

2011 was a big year for social media marketing and musicians once again blazed a trail for all entertainment industries, using tools like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to build and grow their fan base. Facebook, no doubt is one of the main platforms artists have used to connect with their fans. The infographic by RootMusic below shows how the top 250 musicians have used this social network over 2011.

Tonight at 8pm ET when Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood take the stage to co-host the 45th Annual Country Music Associations (CMA) Awards, “Country Music’s Biggest Night” will feature more than 20 performers including mega names like Taylor Swift, Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, Zac Brown Band, Jason Aldean, Keith Urban, Sugarland, Kenny Chesney and Grace Potte.

Happy Monday! Did you take advantage of your extra hour of sleep yesterday? We certainly hope so! Well, here’s what we’re covering in this week’s Social Mashup: Glamour Magazine’s use of Social SnapTags to generate more “likes” for advertisers, Google’s “GoMo” mobile initiative, Twitter’s testing “Top News” and “Top People” in search results, and LinkedIn’s continued growth.

SoLoMo seems to be the latest buzzword to encapsulate the online world. To stay relevant in this social (So), local (Lo), mobile (Mo) space, it’s important to remember the consumer (because let’s be honest they’re the ones forking over the dough at the end of the day, right?) and to understand both their tendencies and behaviors.

The Social Mashup is back for another week! Here’s what we’ve got for you: Foursquare’s new ‘Radar’ feature, the L.A. Dodgers ‘Social September’ promotion, Google+ adds hashtags and real-time search and last but not least the NBA players uniting through social media.

Activ8Social, in partnership with Kwarter, is proud to announce our first official infographic! Kudos to the team at Kwarter Inc who were the masterminds behind the in depth market research which was conducted to demonstrate how the young San Francisco start-up is poised to “change the game” in terms of how fans experience the games we love.

Late Monday afternoon, the New York Red Bulls (RBNY) launched a Foursquare check in sweepstakes on their official team Facebook Page. The promotion is in an effort to highlight a season long grassroots program conducted in partnership with the NYC Parks & Rec called New York’s Got Wings.

Welcome back to this week’s Social Mashup! We’ve got a heavy dose of sports and social media news for you this week. Leading off is Facebook and USA Today’s announcement of an app allowing fans to rate Super Bowl commercials, the Phoenix Suns looking to hire a social media sideline reporter, reports of a Twitter integration into Apple’s iOS5 and Sports Illustrated’s ‘Football Rivals’ app.

We’ve had one heck of the week on the east coast between earthquakes and hurricanes, but we survived it and hope you all made it through as well. For news this week, we’ve got Ticketmaster and Facebook teaming up to make your ticket purchases more social, Tweetsport for iPhone, Facebook photo filters and the New York Giants broadcasting tweets live on television this preseason. Here’s to a safe and natural disaster free week!

Unfortunately beach season is quickly coming to a close but that means American football season is fast approaching! BTW, did anybody catch The Band Perry’s stellar performance at last night’s CMA Musical Festival? This week’s edition of the Social Mashup features a flurry of major college sports programs banning Twitter usage among its student athletes, superstar musicians supporting Save the Children via Facebook and Twitter, Haven’s unique integration of Twitter into its on-air plot, and Rovio’s amazing billion dollar company valuation.