Well, the average age of a Twitter user  is 39 years old
The Average Age of LinkedIn User? 44
And the Average Age of Facebook User? 38

This and a bunch of other social media insights on this infographic from the tweeps at Flowtown: click here for the full hi-res version.

We were thrilled to have been at the launch of the community consultations for the update of the South Australian Strategic Plan today.

It was inspiring to see so many community groups, businesses, individuals and government come together for the common goal of making the place we live the best it can be.

Launch of South Australia's Strategic Plan community consultations

South Australia has been really innovative in its approach - which has been recently acknowledged with an international award.

Carve has been working hard alongside the SA Plan team to develop a social media strategy that raises awareness of the plan, its relevance to everyday South Aussies and ultimately encourages them to ‘join the conversation’ wherever it suits them.

This also involved putting the tools in place to allow as many South Australian as possible to engage in the consultation process including a website that allows debate and discussion, a presence on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and more to come as the consultations progress over the next few months.

This is an enlightening presentation for anyone who is involved in social networking by Paul Adams, a UX researcher from Google.

Probably most relevant for someone who’s daily actions can be fairly consistently tracked on Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter and particularly those who want to keep their personal and professional lives separate online.

And while we are on the topic of social profiles, another great post you might like to check out is about knowing and maintaining your own social footprint effectively from Michelle Prak here.

Robert Greene : King of Facebook 12-14 June 2010
Anelka : King of Facebook 19 june 2010
Find here the World Cup players as ranked by Facebook users, that is by their respective number of mentions on a given day.
Simple and fun. As well as the best way to know who’s buzzing now. Probably applicable for other events…Olympics, Academy Awards, National Elections…

Carve likes it.

Hot on the heels of considerable user concern about recent privacy changes (cleverly demonstrated by the already-notorious http://youropenbook.org/) Facebook has been burning the midnight oil with a “Privacy Redesign”.  Just got this email illustrating the advertiser perspective.

Hi Paul,

Facebook will roll out changes today that will make it easier for our users to understand and control their privacy settings. As this change will have an impact on our users, we wanted to let you, a valued advertising partner, know about it. Please note that this change will not affect your advertising campaigns and there is no action required on your part.

Facebook is a company that moves quickly, constantly innovating and launching new products to improve the user experience. The feedback we heard from users was that in our efforts to innovate, some of our privacy settings h ad become confusing.

We believe in listening to our users and taking their feedback into account whenever possible. We think the following changes address these concerns by providing users with more control over their privacy settings and making them more simple to use.

Starting today, Facebook will:

*	Provide an easy-to-use “master” control that enables users to set who can see the content they share through Facebook.  This enables users to choose, with just one click, the overall privacy level they’re comfortable with for the content they share on Facebook. Of course, users can still use all of the granular controls we’ve always offered, if they wish.
*	Significantly reduce the amount of information that must be visible to everyone on Facebook. Facebook will no longer require that users’ friends and connections are visible to everyone. Only Name, Profile Picture, Networks and Gender must be publicly available. Users can opt to make all other connections private.
*	Make it simple to control whether other applications and websites access any user information. While a majority of our users love Facebook apps and Facebook-enhanced websites, some may prefer not to share their information outside of Facebook. Users can now opt out with just one click.

I encourage you to take a moment to read our CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s blog post and check out the new Facebook Privacy Page.

Thanks,
The Facebook Ads Team

The “Facebook in Real Life” film.

Nestle is currently fighting a losing battle on its Facebook Fan Page

What they should do next?

For Nestle right now, there are 3 x steps they need to take:

• Get personal. Posting as “Nestle” is a big mistake: people respond to people, and Facebook is after all a social network. Get a senior Nestle team member –with their real profile and photo - engaged NOW in answering questions. This will make a huge difference to the timbre of debate and authenticity of dealing with this.

• Make sure that they’re responding privately and publicly across all platforms – so if the same debate is kicking off on YouTube, make sure a Nestle person who understands YouTube with their profile is there to respond on YouTube, ditto via Twitter, and so on.

• Use it as an opportunity: get a real person at Nestle as above to find out exactly what the issue is, the depth of feeling, and be open and honest. Could Nestle actually take a serious look at the issues raised? Ask these people if they care about this issue, could Nestle create a virtual working group and invite these people together virtually to genuinely address this issue and discuss it, with Nestle responding to ideas and crowd sourcing possible responses / solutions.

Nestle – with Fairtrade for example – has proven it can listen and act responsibly – do that now, do it openly.

In terms of other brands watching and cringing, there are a couple of key take aways from this:

• Have a strategy in place. The fact that Nestle clearly didn’t have a strategy in place re logos / deleting posts etc ( or if they did, it was the wrong one ) is the first mistake. Brands – no matter how big or small – have to be prepared for this “Black Swan” moment, as Habitat and Paperchase have recently discovered..

• This means having an active listening plan in place so that brands can track buzz / negative sentiment and react faster.

• Secondly it’s about having the right guidelines in place: Be polite, be responsive understand that this is ‘not your space, its theirs’ (so a God-like editing of posts / set of 10 Commandments like ‘thou shalt not alter our logo’ are not going to work ).

• Thirdly, brands have to have an escalation policy in place – who gets involved if a death threat is posted to the CEO? Or something like this kicks off? All of these things need to be in place now, not after the horse has bolted. The best way is having a social media working group with heads of sales / HR / CRM / PR / comms etc that meet for an hour a month in order to plan for this type of eventuality.

I remember when mobile location based services were first being touted in 2000 - in the midst of the dotcom boom and getting our heads around exactly what e-commerce was, it was all so exciting and held so much promise.

It was around the same time when I believed the hype about voice recognition software and that in just a few years I’d have no use for my touchtype training all those years ago on an old typewriter (to the beats of some rather uplifting piano music no less) but instead would be having lovely realistic (an authentic Australian accent was even promised by one vendor) conversations with my laptop.

However, it seems a different story with Foursquare and its competitors. According to a report released this week by Juniper Research revenue from mobile location based services could reach US$12.7 million by 2014. An article in the Washington Post provides a good analysis of the report here.

I’m not surprised having spent the last few weeks evangelising to everyone I know (and nearly everyone I meet) about the potential of Foursquare and other similar services. While it has been around since mid last year, it was limited to select cities so unless you travelled globally, it was hard to get your head around the potential of it, but since the start of the year it can be used anywhere now.

Foursquare is basically a service you can download to your mobile phone that allows you to let everyone know where you are - it’s like Twitter for socialites.

Instead of telling everyone what  you are doing, you let your friends know where you are by ‘checking-in’ to various locations either already in the system or you can add them if you are the first to check-in there.

For those whose ears I haven’t chewed off about this topic as yet, below is a good video from the Wall Street Journal as to what Foursquare all about. And this article also from the Wall Street Journal highlights the benefits  small businesses are gaining from combining social media with their marketing.

There are literally hundreds of mobile location based services around including Gowalla, Yelp (which has had its own problems with iliciting bad reviews which we wrote about recently) and even early forerunners like Brightkite, Loopt and My Town but Foursquare is getting a lot of attention perhaps because of its quick growth - some quote it as having more than 1/2 million users already, but its also been in the news with the recent concerns over privacy and its partnership announcements with high profile brands like Bravo and Zagats.

But if people are going to worry about privacy on Foursquare they’ll be horrified to learn about another service Blibby which goes one step further and allows you to tell your friends where and what you are buying somewhere. A story in the Financial Times this week claims the service already has 10,000 users since its launch in December ‘09.

But back to Foursquare, some including Nicholas Carlson at Business Insider, say that Foursquare’s will be ousted from its ‘mayorship’ in the space if other more established and popular social networking sites like Facebook add location based services. And the introduction of Google Buzz adds another interesting element to the mix.

Nicholas also gives a nice comparison between some of the services in his article:

Yelp

• Advantages: Scale, brand, ardent community, large app install base. More money from investors like Elevation Partners.

• Disadvantages: Not your real friends. It’s a site for writers. No Foursquare-like gaming element.

Gowalla

• Advantages: Closer to mainstream than Foursquare. Has more money than Foursquare, from sexy investors like Greylock. Not based in New York so it’s closer to “real” America.

• Disadvantages: Not based in New York, which is the perfect city for this kind of software.

Facebook

• Advantages: Huge scale. Has tons of engineering talent. Like with Foursquare, Facebook friends are your real friends — the kind of people you want to join you when you go out.

• Disadvantages: Unlike Foursquare, Facebook can afford to fail. Potential rivals also include Twitter and CitySearch

Momentum is certainly growing in all these services and a lot of people are talking about it, but there are those who aren’t convinced just yet.

It seems a pretty safe bet that business will gain real benefit from these services (a lot safer than betting on my talking laptop at least), so the real issue is whose going to lead the way.

As a brand, whether you’ve decided to set up a twitter account, a facebook fan page or a blog to get closer to and engage with your community the following top tips on how to love your community (well, it is nearly Valentine’s Day) from social media monitoring company Radian 6 are worth a read.

In many ways, a healthy relationship between your brand and its community parallels that of a healthy relationship between two people. Both relationships rest on simple tenets like respect, and both should be celebrated whenever possible. When thinking about the connection you’ve built with your community and its members, remember these 10 truths of a healthy relationship to keep your community feeling loved and appreciated.

1. Remember to say ‘Thank you’ – People generally enjoy saying or doing nice things for others and tend to do it without expecting to be thanked for it. However, we all know how great it makes us feel when we are recognized for our efforts. When your community says something nice about you, it’s always a wonderful idea to say ‘thank you’.
2. Celebrate their successes – This is the age-old principle of thinking of others before yourself. If you do so, then you will probably notice the great things members of your community are accomplishing. Congratulate them and share their successes with others whenever you can.
3. Be a good listener – This is probably some advice we all received at least once from a parent in our lives. Like Stephen R. Covey points out in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Great relationships are also built on the idea of give and then, perhaps, get. Invest in your community by listening and understanding their needs.
4. Ask for their opinion – There probably isn’t a person alive who doesn’t like being asked for their opinion. Collaboration on a project almost always produces a better end result. Social media has given brands an amazingly simple and effective way to engage with those who have thoughts and ideas about them and their products and services. Remember to ask your community for its opinion.
5. Don’t forget about the little things – Sometimes it is the smallest of gestures that can mean the most to someone. Focusing on the little things that matter can show a person that they are indeed worth your time. When approaching relationships from a long-term frame of mind, it is very possible to make the time along the way for those important details without getting overwhelmed by the idea. Look out for the little touches to help each community member.
6. Be patient – In any relationship, making things work means working through the occasional misunderstanding or frustration with one another. Life is not supposed to be simple; if it were, it wouldn’t be all that exciting. It’s important that you take a step back and look at every challenge from the other’s point of view. Your patience and willingness to try to understand will be appreciated. Be known for your abundant patience and caring approach with your community.
7. Admit your mistakes – Nobody is perfect, and holding onto your pride will never do you any favors. When you invest in building relationships within your community, members get to know your brand’s human side. You will make errors but, while members may be disappointed, your community generally has the ability and willingness to forgive. Be quick to admit your mistakes and be genuine in asking for forgiveness.
8. Share a common passion – Brands and people are more than capable of setting up daily routines to get things accomplished based on things that need to be done. And while working side by side on something does create a bond, it’s usually not a bond that is sustainable over a very long period of time. Finding a common passion, something you both enjoy doing and talking about, creates the strongest bonds. If you are passionate about what you do, then no doubt there are others out there that feel the same way you do. Find them, invite them to your community, and enjoy learning and sharing together.
9. Show respect and gain trust – The strongest relationships are built on mutual respect and trust. But getting to that point should ideally start with you. Be willing to respect the views of your community even though you may not entirely agree with them. Community members have reasons for their views and it is up to you to understand, or at least accept, them. And, when making commitments to your community, make sure you meet or exceed their expectations. Being willing to compromise, or give and take, will help your brand demonstrate respect and earn a community’s trust.
10. Celebrate Valentine’s Day everyday – Giving your community a Valentine once a year is definitely a nice gesture, but finding ways to show them how much you love them on a regular basis should be what you strive for. Apply your creative energy to think of new ways to accomplish goals 1-9. Most companies are still just awakening to this idea of focusing on their community, so anything you do to show appreciation for your community now can help your brand stand out in the crowd. And, heck, who doesn’t enjoy making someone smile with an unexpected gift?

You can read the full post here.

For those of you who don’t follow the excellent Web Strategy blog written by Jeremiah Owyang from the Altimeter Group, here is a link to the matrix he has just built, comparing Google Buzz, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. There’s lots of great stuff in this matrix, and it gives a seriously good SWOT analysis of the four platforms today.

To be fair, I was slightly surprised to see MySpace thrown into the equation as I don’t really see the platform competing with the others, but I guess you can’t really discard 57 million users in the US alone.

Talking about Google Buzz, I’ve only just started playing with it yesterday. Although I’m looking forward to see how it develops, I must say I haven’t really been bowled over by it so far. It looks to me like lots of noise that’s difficult to classify and make sense of. A bit like Google Wave, which I couldn’t get into either. Too much hype for not much susbtance after all?

The again, very few of my contacts have joined the Buzz so far so maybe I just need a few more friends to play with it?

If you happen to have missed the massive debate around Google Buzz these last few days, you can catch up here with ReadWriteWeb’s extensive coverage and analysis.