A new study has shown that blogging amongst brands and businesses is in decline as corporations turn to social media to engage with and inform customers.

Since 2007, The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has looked at social media usage amongst corporates in the Inc. 500, how that compares to those in the Fortune 500, and to previous years. The latest report, which presents data from 2011, showed that blogging has declined for the first time amongst the Inc. 500, with just 37 percent now using a blog amongst their marketing arsenal, compared to 91 percent who use social media.

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Twitter has maintained its position as the most popular social networking site for U.S. financial institutions, says a new study.

In its Social Media Leaders report, Corporate Insight discovered that at the end of 2011, some 92 percent of the financial companies tracked had a presence on Twitter, up from 51 percent in 2010.

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A new study has suggested that while Hispanic users are more likely to be active on most of the major social networking sites than the greater population, they’re also more careful about their online privacy.

uSamp surveyed 650 adult Hispanics about their social media habits and found that they outscored the general populace in how many of them were using Facebook, YouTube and even Google+. Hispanic users were approximately on par with other users for Twitter, with LinkedIn the only social network were they were noticeably underrepresented.

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Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of photo-sharing app Instagram has made serious waves throughout the business world, with many pundits already proclaiming the perceived overpayment as another apocalyptic sign of the inevitable tech bubble, part deux. After all, Instagram was valued at $500 million in a venture capital fundraising series just a week ago, so why would Facebook pay twice as much?

Well, the reasons vary, and you’ll have your own. Still, many Instagram early adopters (read: hipsters) were already up in arms that their oh-so-obscure (30 million iPhone users) photo-tweaking platform had just been launched on the Android marketplace, but this purchase by the evil, consumerist Facebook has really taken the cake.

But what about normal people. What do they think about this deal?

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Do you pride yourself on your outstandingly good behaviour on Twitter and Facebook?

Well, you might want to take another look, as if you’re anything like the overwhelming majority of other social networking users, you’ve committed at least one of the Bible’s Seven Deadly Sins. And probably a lot more.

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With well over a billion users between them, Facebook and Twitter dominate the world of social media, and have quickly established themselves as an increasingly pivotal cog in the world of news distribution.

But according to a new report from the Pew Research Center, that cog might not be as substantial as we perhaps suspected, as Pew’s study has revealed that just 9 percent of U.S. adults receive news updates on a frequent basis via these channels.

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With a couple of notable exceptions, technology companies mostly underperformed in a new survey of consumer brands in the UK, which was dominated by luxury item firms, automobile manufacturers and drinks makers.

Rolex topped the list ahead of Coca-Cola, with Google the highest-ranking technology company in third. Apple and Microsoft, formerly in the top 10, dropped to 18th and 45th respectively, while Facebook and Twitter both debuted a lot higher than expected.

Twitter ranked 134th amongst all brands, ahead of such luminaries as Vodafone, Vaseline, Tesco and Ray-Ban, while Facebook, at 32nd, beat British Airways, Kellogg’s, BP and Cadbury.

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65 percent of 16-24 year-olds in the UK rate social media as their favourite hobby, ahead of watching television, reading and playing video games, says a new study.

One third of this group spent upwards of three hours at a time using Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites, in a variety of locations, and 6 percent of those surveyed spend more than eight hours each day using social media.

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In social media, timing can be everything.

A common mistake that many marketers make is trying to force their audience to fit their schedule – typically, 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday, local time – rather than trying to schedule their posts at the right time for their audience.

A new study has taken a closer look at the optimal times to update on Twitter and Facebook, submit blog posts and send emails to maximize user engagement and clicks – and the results might surprise you.

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Facebook has been cited as one of the primary causes in an incredible one-third of all UK divorces in the past year, up from 20 percent in 2009.

In stark contrast, Twitter was mentioned in just 0.4 percent of filings. Could Facebook possibly be a contributory factor in 50 percent of all failed marriages within one or two years?

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