Financial Times Unveils 70-Foot Interactive Wall in Grand Central Terminal

The Financial Times took the wraps off it’s latest U.S. marketing campaign in New York’s Grand Central Terminal Tuesday. The exhibit and accompanying campaign, which boasts both online and offline components, highlights the publication’s growing investment in data journalism.
Between now and Thursday, those passing by are invited to interact with a large, touch-sensitive floor mat positioned on the west end of Grand Central, in Vanderbilt Hall. With the help of three “brand ambassadors,” who will be positioned by the exhibit at all times, visitors can move around an FT-branded mat to interact with a series of 3D interactive infographics projected 70 feet high on the hall’s south wall.
The infographics touch on three central topics of the FT‘s coverage: the position of the U.S. relative to the global economy, the spread and growth of mobile technology, and the global recession and recovery, U.S. managing editor Rob Grimshaw said in an interview with Mashable. All three were designed by David McCandless, author of Information Is Beautiful (and this great TED Talk).

The online extension of the campaign resides at ftgraphicworld.com, where visitors can watch videos of the infographics in action and share their reactions through an embedded Facebook comment widget. Visitors can also take advantage of a free, one-week subscription offer from the FT.com.
While were impressed by the infographics and the data housed therein, it seems unfortunate that the FT didn’t develop infographics that could have worked on the website in addition to — or even instead of — the exhibit set up in Grand Central. The decision certainly limited the much wider reception the campaign might have enjoyed online, we think.
Images courtesy of The Financial Times, Mashable.

How Is Social Media Evidence Used In Divorce Cases? [Infographic]

A new trend is emerging within the realm of family law—lawyers are turning to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to help them with their cases.  An exclusive infographic provided by California Divorce Attorneys takes a deeper look at this trend.

The infographic, ‘How Family Law Attorneys Use Social Media Evidence In Court Cases,’ not only explores how social media is used in litigation (and specifically divorce cases), but also explores a number of cases in which social media was key.

The infographic reports that, “Since 2010 social media has been a key part of nearly 700 cases.”  It is used to determine a person’s state of mind, evidence of communication between individuals, evidence of time and place (i.e. check-ins), and evidence of actions.

Check out the full infographic below and let us know what you think.  Does it make you want to go into Facebook, Twitter and other social media services and delete anything that may be incriminating?

The Marketer’s Guide To Pinterest [Infographic]

Pinterest, the visual social network that lets users “pin” images they like from around the web to virtual pin boards, is stacking up to be one of the fastest growing social sites of all time.  With more and more people joining Pinterest every day, it’s becoming impossible for marketers to ignore the Pinterest phenomenon.  But how can marketers get in on this?  A new infographic from MDG Advertising takes a deeper look.

‘Pin It to Win It: A Marketer’s Guide to Pinterest’ breaks down the “who, why, and how of Pinterest.”  The infographic starts out by taking a look at the people who pin.  The breakdown is currently 87 percent female to 13 percent male, with most pinners being between the ages of 25 and 54.
So, as a marketer, why should you be on Pinterest?  The infographic explains, plainly, that you should be on the site because it’s making history.  “According to comScore, Pinterest hit 11.7 million unique monthly U.S. visitors in January, making it the fastest standalone site in history to cross the 10 million mark.”  They also provide convincing statistics on how Pinterest is driving traffic, and list some big brands that are already on Pinterest.
Once you’re convinced, the infographic sheds some light on how you can make Pinterest work for your brand with some helpful tips, including adding ‘Pin It’ buttons to your site content, pumping up the quality of pinable content on your site, and more.
Check out the infographic and let us know what you think in the comments below.  Is your company on Pinterest yet?  If not, do you plan to be?

The Value of Being LinkedIn [Infographic]

When Twitter and LinkedIn were hitting their first wave of buzz, waves of critics surfaced to let everyone know it was ‘too little, too late’ — social was already done by Facebook and better.  That juvenile analysis has given way to the realization that social is not just a single stream, but rather a rushing river of which there will be several branches.  One of those branches is the professional social space, of which LinkedIn is king.
So just how epic is LinkedIn?  An infographic from the infographic pundits at OnlineMBA shows a whole lot of interesting stats about LinkedIn, including:

• 1 million new users every 12 days means 1 new user per second
• 69% of users make at least $60K
• 39% make over $100K
• 2 Billion people searches on LinkedIn in 2010

Check out the infographic below.

A Day in the Life of a Social Media Manager [Infographic]

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a social media manager?  That involves taking care of tweets, hitting up Skype, managing Facebook pages and being connected at all times.  The folks over at Socialcast have done some pretty good research for an infographic called “A Day in the Life of a Social Media Manager” and there are surprising statistics in there.
Did you know that a social media manager has a salary range of between $34,000 and $56,000?  How about that 62% are female — although from my experience that’s no surrpise.  Most SMMs have between 1 and 4 years experience, which makes sense seeing that the role can’t really be much older than 5 years.  Check out more below, and visit the source at socialcast.

Zynga’s Earnings: Social Gaming Revenue by the Numbers [INFOGRAPHIC]

Social gaming juggernaut Zynga released its 2011 Q4 earnings on Tuesday — its first public report since hitting NASDAQ in December.
The numbers were promising for investors, but revealed that scaling might pose challenges for longterm profitability. Our friends at Statista have taken a deeper look at the report and rendered the graphs below to show the relationship between Zynga’s massive user base, wavering growth patterns, and how much users are paying for content.

Have you purchased stock in Zynga? Do you expect it to be a longterm win for your portfolio? Let us know what you think of the report in the comments below.

A History of the Business of Social Media

Social media has come a long way since it's humble beginnings over 30 years ago. This infographic gives us a short history of the many innovative companies that have helped shape the environment that we so heavily rely on to communicate and also takes a look at some of the business deals behind them. What's next? You decide.

How Well Are Schools Using Social Media ? [Infographic]

Is social media a distraction for students or an integrated part of college life? This infographic shows how schools have joined their students on sites like Facebook and Twitter to make college campuses even more social.
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth conducted a Social Media Adoption study to see how social media is used in higher education. Not surprisingly, one hundred percent of the colleges and universities studied were using social media in some form.
The most common tool used was Facebook, which is used by 98 percent of the schools that participated in the study. The other tools used were LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs and message boards. The study, which lasted three school years between 2008 and 2011, showed some especially large growth rates for Twitter and LinkedIn in the last year.
LinkedIn recently enhanced its student profiles to include organizations, projects, awards, test scores and courses taken to make that first job out of college more attainable. Twitter users reported that professors used the microblogging site to make announcements about class schedules and tests.
Professional networking, outreach to current and potential students, and school pride were among the reasons listed for engaging in social media.  The Harvard University Facebook page, for example, includes articles from the Harvard Gazette, an ad for the “Tour Harvard Yard” mobile app, and pictures of life on campus in a folder titled, “As Seen at Harvard.” The posts drew comments from many hopeful applicants, as well as a few students.
The most social schools were John Hopkins University, University of Notre Dame, Ohio State University, Columbia University in the City of New York, and of course Harvard University, which was the school Mark Zuckerberg was attending when he created Facebook. None of these schools made Princeton Review’s list of top party schools in 2012, so the party must have moved online.
The infographic comes from Online Universities and includes some of the do’s and don’ts of social media at school. Take a look.

Facebook Social Games [infographic]

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of February 2012, Facebook has more than 845 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile.
The fact that half of the population of the Internet plays social games on Facebook and Google+ caught our attention. That’s the reason we’ve compiled some very insightful stats from great authorities on social media and online games and put everything together in a brand new infographic we present to you today titled: What Makes Social Games on Facebook and Google+ so Popular?If you haven’t quite grasped the concept of why in the world are people so addicted to Mafia Wars and keep requesting your help to load up on weapons and armour…let us show you why in our detailed infographic: