Who would take home the 2013 Oscars if the winners were determined wholly by social media?

Well, according to Twitter and Facebook, and looking at nominees ranked by shares, Hugh Jackman would win Best Actor for Les Miserables and Jennifer Lawrence would bag Best Actress for her role in Silver Linings Playbook, which would also be crowned Best Picture.

However, if social media users really had their way, the winners of choice would be very different indeed… and haven’t even been nominated at all.

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When you’re a brand establishing yourself on social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, in the very early days you’re usually less concerned about who is following you, and more about how many.

It’s superficial, of course, but large numbers of followers on Twitter and Likes on your Facebook Page do have provide a level of social proof that makes you more attractive to new followers, and new Likes – when someone sees that you’re already popular, they’re far more likely to make the leap and get on board themselves.

But for businesses looking to maximise the ROI of their social media strategy, how many is always far, far less important than who. Pretty soon you realise that a big number is meaningless unless it’s actually converting into brand awareness, website footfall and sales – so who should you be looking to attract?

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Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have proven themselves as wonderful marketing tools for modern businesses, allowing brands of all shapes and sizes to engage with customers, fans and prospects around the world.

But what about the social networks themselves – how well do they engage?

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Two-thirds of online adults use one of the top three social networks – Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – and, because your typical user is so prolific in the content they share and engage with on these platforms, we can easily learn an enormous amount about their personalities.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is based on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types. Developed in 1921, and still in use today, the MBTI presents a questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how we all perceive the world and make decisions, with a resulting 16 possible psychological types, including extraversion (E), introversion (I), sensing (S), intuition (N) and so on.

How might that apply to social media?

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Has Facebook peaked?

If the results of a new survey are to be believed, then perhaps it has. 52 percent of respondents said that they planned to spend less time on Facebook, and a heady 73 percent said that they believed that another social network will eclipse it.

So, here’s the big question: will it be Twitter?

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Yesterday we wrote about a new study that looked closely at the ways that teenagers across the USA are using social media, inasmuch as how quickly it has become an integral part of their day-to-day lives.

The survey polled more than 1,000 13-17 year-olds around the U.S. – the first generation to grow up on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook – and discovered that while 90 percent of them have used social media, it’s not been without its pitfalls.

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Did you know that 24 percent of people surveyed in a recent poll said that they had missed witnessing important moments because they were too busy trying to write about them on their favourite social network… while they were taking place?

Ah, the irony. Of course, I’ve addressed this before: the more that you’re on Twitter talking about what you’re doing, then the less that you’re actually doing it.

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Did you know that internet users spend 22.5 percent of their online time social networking?

Facebook leads the way with a heady 62.83 percent share, far ahead of YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest. But overall, and collectively, the numbers are mind-blowing – the web contains more than eight billion pages, and the total number of users online has now exceeded 2.27 billion people. And it’s constantly growing – that number has doubled since 2007.

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Did you know that Facebook employs more than 3,000 people? Or that Club Penguin has more folks on its staff roster than Twitter?

The world of social media is complex and growing all the time, with different networks gaining popularity seemingly on a monthly basis. Facebook continues to lead the way, of course, but new players such as Pinterest are making serious waves, and even old hands like Reddit have found a surge of renewed interest.

But how do they all match up?

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Did you know that 96 percent of the top 250 internet retailers have a presence on Twitter, and command an average follower count of 57,097?

These impressive numbers are only bettered by Facebook, which has a slight edge over Twitter in overall usage (97 percent) but dwarfs the micro-blobbing network in audience size. The top Facebook-using internet retailers average almost one million fans a piece, and some 43 retailer Facebook Pages have more than a million Likes.

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