Did you know that 91 percent of B2B marketers use content marketing?

And with good reason, too – blogs give websites 434 percent more index pages and 97 percent more index links, and B2B companies that actively blog generate 67 percent more leads per month. Overall, an incredible $118.4 billion is expected to be spent on content marketing, video marketing and social media in 2013.

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Is there such a thing as a perfect tweet?

Sure there is. While the content that you post on Twitter will vary depending on your business, paying close attention to how you tweet can dramatically improve your engagement rates. Having a clear call to action, being mindful to use proper punctuation and shortening URLs (with Bitly) are simple steps everyone can take to optimise the quality of their Twitter output, maximising reader interest and significantly improving ROI.

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Did you know that with more than three million active Twitter users, and a 300 percent year-on-year growth rate, Saudi Arabia ranks number one in the world as the fastest-growing Twitter nation? Moreover, Arabic is the fastest-growing language on Twitter, and 88 percent of the Middle East’s online population uses one or more social networking sites each day.

Indeed, social media usage throughout the Middle East is very much on the rise, with Facebook, Twitter and Google+ all popular in varying degrees through the Gulf region, and LinkedIn has a particularly strong presence in the business-focused UAE.

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Social media crises have popped up in the media fairly frequently lately, from the spate of SEA hackings to the @ComfortablySmug Twitter account that during Hurricane Sandy posted a series of lies about damage, loss of power, and – most notoriously – the New York Stock Exchange flooding.

What’s a social media manager to do in time of such turmoil?

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As social media has rapidly integrated itself into seemingly all aspects of our personal and professional lives over the past decade or so, it’s easy to forget how much of an impact it has had, negatively, on all those things that we used to like to do – a lot – before Twitter and Facebook came along.

TV, for example. We used to watch a lot of that. And we still, really, but it’s on the decline, as is radio, alongside newspaper and magazine reading.

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In less than a decade social media has infiltrated almost every aspect of our personal and professional lives, and with each new month brings a new feature, a new must-have tool, and, as often as not, a brand-new platform, to this veritable smorgasbord of digital connectivity.

Have you ever stopped to think what it might be doing to our psyche, both collectively and as individuals?

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The business of public relations is still a cost-effective way to generate exposure and awareness of brand products and services, and PR firms are increasingly utilising social media to maximise the effectiveness of their campaigns.

The strategy makes sense. By amplifying the message with platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, PR firms (and brands) are far more likely to be directly targeting the folks who will make the big decision on whether to say ‘yes’ to what they’re trying to promote – one-third of B2B buyers use social media to engage with vendors, and three-in-five decision makers are influenced by at least one social media channel during their decision-making process.

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We’re three games into the NBA Finals showdown between the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs and, after the game 3 drubbing that the Spurs’ Tim Duncan et al inflicted on LeBron James’ lacklustre Heat to take an overall 2-1 series lead, the winner of this year’s NBA Championship, if not quite a foregone conclusion, certainly appears to be partially etched on the trophy.

But what if the pick of the NBA was determined solely by a team’s ranking across major social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram? Would San Antonio still come top?

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In less than a decade, social media has evolved from an innovative, albeit fairly casual digital connection between friends to an all-consuming business and marketing powerhouse that can quickly overwhelm with the sheer number of options and data available to both the end user and brands of all shapes and sizes.

Did you know, for example, that in any given minute more than half a million comments are posted to Facebook, 347,000 tweets are submitted on Twitter and 3,600 photos are shared on Instagram? For businesses looking to embrace all aspects of social media this can quickly lead to an information overload… and it’s the customer who suffers the consequences.

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Recent crises both at home and abroad – the Boston Marathon bombing, Turkish protests, Oklahoma tornadoes – have proven the value of social media as a crisis management tool.

The editors at Emergency Management Degrees have depicted the role that social media plays in panic mode in the infographic below.

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