Here’s some thrilling news for all Foursquare fans – from now on you can request and visualise your entire check-in history and you can even have it in the form of an infographic! Foursquare calls this the Foursquare Time Machine! Isn’t that cool?

Indeed, it is a tool that will probably be appreciated only by real Foursquare addicts – those who more or less check in everywhere they go – but it still offers a great check-ins overview in an interactive and visual form as well as some interesting suggestions of new places you should discover. The best thing about it though is that it’s a really cool trip down memory lane allowing you to re-live moments of the past.

So, just for fun

Yesterday I came across Stephen Waddington’s blog post introducing the findings of the 2013 Ketchum Leadership Communication Monitor (KLCM) and I found them quite interesting and worthwhile discussing, so I decided to share them. (Oh and by the way, Brandzeichen (the agency I work at) is now officially part of the Ketchum network).

Some background first: the annual research explored the perceptions of 6,000 people in 12 countries on five continents “regarding effective leadership, effective communication and the intrinsic link between the two.”

Here’s what got my attention:

• Only 24% of people around the globe believe leaders overall are providing effective leadership.
• Last year astonishing 60% of people boycotted or bought less from a company due to poor leadership behavior.
• For the second year in a row open, transparent communication is the No. 1 characteristic of an effective leader.
• However, 29% point a gap between expectation and delivery on communicating in an open and transparent way and only 16% believe leaders are effective communicators.
• In the rank of credible information sources on a company employees are at the top, CEOs are placed sixth.

Since the emergence of online and social media there has been a steady decline in the use of traditional media – newspapers, TV, radio. It’s no surprise that this ‘revolution’ has mainly been driven by the younger generation, namely those who have grown up with social – the so called ‘digital natives.’ These new channels have massively gained in importance and have now become trusted sources for various types of information and news among consumers.

A new research of how Generation Y (or millennials, i.e. those aged 14-30) substantiates exactly this shift in social news sources:

• 68% of millennials rely on social media for news, only 33% on newspapers;
• however, millennials place great importance on the accuracy of information and currently 66% are not confident the news they receive is accurate (so brands transparency is crucial!).

What these figures and the ones below in the infographic show is that there has been a fundamental shift in trust in news sources – social media has surpassed traditional media.

Last week Social Media Examiner published the results of their fifth annual social media marketing report. This year more than 3,000 marketers took part in the study and revealed some interesting facts about their activities and use of social media for marketing purposes as well as their efforts for the future and investment plans. The report basically covers the “who, what, where, when and why” of social media marketing. And there are some truly fascinating findings this year, which I am going to show you below.

Top social media questions marketers want answered:

• 90% of marketers: What social tactics are most effective?
• 88% of marketers: What are the best ways to engage my audience with social media?
• 87% of marketers: How do I measure the return on my social media investment?

Are you addicted to Facebook? Come on, be honest! I think I might be... And I am pretty sure there are thousands, no, millions of other people out there who check their Facebook at least five times a day. Considering that Facebook has more than 1,11 billion active users where the regular member spends close to seven hours a month on the platform and that 67% of all internet users are actually on it, the reality today is quite simple: if your brand is not present on Facebook, then it might as well not exist at all. In the 21st century your company cannot afford not to be on Facebook – it’s just how our always-on, everywhere-available society now ticks.

Lately, I’ve seen plenty of articles talking about how people are getting fed up with Facebook and stop using it. One even said that “Facebook is dead among young people.” Imagine that! I can only say, Facebook is certainly not dead among us, the young people, and is not going to be anytime soon because we have grown up with Facebook, it’s our most beloved communications channel and we are not going to ditch it anytime soon. So, brands, if you are not yet on Facebook, please seriously consider creating a presence there, because we, the young people, are your future customers, employees and leaders – we expect you to be available on social media, otherwise you don’t really exist for us because we can’t find you. (Harsh, I know, but this is becoming the prevailing reality.)

If that’s not convincing you,