What was once an informal convention confined to geeks, developers, and early adopters (pretty much one and the same, eh?), has become a mainstream element of social media for the masses.

A new study by RadiumOne reveals that a full three quarters of social media users employ hashtags.

But it gets even more surprising.

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Good news travels fast.

Especially on social networks. So says Jonah Berger, a social psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania and author of new book (and recent SXSW talk), Contagious: Why Things Catch On.

Berger and his Penn colleague Katherine Milkman dove into people’s social networking habits, analyzing the types of content people share most, with whom, when, and why. The results are pretty fascinating.

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There were many major developments in social media in 2012, but perhaps the biggest and most important change was the shift into mobile.

46 percent of U.S. social media users now access platforms such as Twitter and Facebook via their mobile phone, a number which is up 9 percentage points – or almost one-quarter overall – compared to 2011. Conversely, access to social media sites via desktop fell 3 percentage points over the same period.

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Smartphone owners spend more using platforms such as Twitter and Facebook on their devices than any other online activity, and are also considerably more social than their desktop counterparts, reveals a new study.

A July 2012 study by GfK Group discovered that almost one-third (31 percent) of the average smartphone owner’s internet time is spent social networking – close to twice as much as email, which ranked as the second most-popular activity.

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Did you know that just over one quarter (27 percent) of organisations have a dedicated social media team, with almost two-thirds (65 percent) assigning social media tasks on top of existing job responsibilities, typically to employees working in marketing or PR?

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Whipping out your iPhone or Android device and checking your email, text messages and social media updates when you’re on the move has quickly become an everyday part of many of our lives, particularly when we find ourselves in queues or other occasions where killing time is high priority.

But there are limits, right?

Seemingly not, at least according to a new study, which has revealed that more than half of UK social networkers check Twitter and Facebook on their smartphones during romantic meals.

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Why do people use social networks? Is there a difference in how we approach and use personal and professional social media platforms, and are we a different person on each?

In The Mindset Divide, LinkedIn polled more than 6,000 social media users across 12 different countries about the ways they use different social channels. Their aspiration? That marketers will be better able to connect to these different mindsets on personal and professional networks.

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The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is an indicator that tracks a variety of economic sectors, industries, companies and government services, reporting scores on a scale of 0 to 100 in customer evaluation of the quality of goods and services provided.

Facebook has been a mainstay in the ACSI since 2010, but this year four new social networks were added to the mix – Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest.

Twitter scored a lowly 64 in its debut, beating Facebook, which fell five points from last year to 61, and LinkedIn, which scored a 63. Pinterest rated an impressive 69 in its first showing.

And your winner? That would be Google+, whose 78 left every other social channel in the dust and beat social networking overall by some nine points.

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What do women want?

Ah, the age-old question. And the answer, of course, is everything. Or is it? Back in March, we took a look at research from NetBase that analysed the things that men and women say that they want according to their posts on social media sites, noting that the study reached an interesting conclusion. Namely, that both genders mostly want the exact same things – ice cream, cars and pizza – albeit in a different order of preference.

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For the first time in the history of mobile apps, smartphone owners now spend as much time using social networking apps such as Twitter and Facebook as they do playing games, reveals a new study.

In Q1 2012, users logged an average of 24 minutes per day using social networking apps on their phones, up from 15 minutes per day a year ago. Gaming app usage also registered at 24 minutes, but this is down a single minute from 2011. This is a big deal, as games had led all app categories for 40 months, since tracking began back in 2008.

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