The social media community is fairly vibrant and well-established in the Newcastle area now. I think its about time to highlight the great writers, photographers, sights, scenes and ideas floating around the region and put them all in one easy place for everyone to find.

This photo is here for no other reason than its of a Newcastle beach

My team and I are putting together a side project to curate the best Hunter-based content.

That’s where you come in. We’re looking for people who’d like to contribute to a well-run online magazine for Newcastle and the Hunter. Its a chance for you to raise your profile, discuss burning issues, highlight the things you love and get some additional traffic and link-love along the way.

It’s a little bit Huffington Post (without heavy politics), a little bit Daily Candy, a little bit Digital Ministry (community contribution, not the geeky content), a little bit Gridskipper.

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Popularity: unranked

These days we take social media for granted. For many of us its just become a natural part of our day and even our work. Its fast, its dynamic and it can be highly stimulating.

But what if we couldn’t use social media?

Social communication is one of the biggest challenges for people with autism. Now autism charities in more than 40 countries are joining forces to launch a global campaign challenging the world?s 4.5 billion social media users to shutdown their networks just for one day.

The Communication Shutdown campaign encourages social media users to make a donation and receive a charity app, or CHAPP, that will signal their support and intention to opt out of Facebook and Twitter on 1 November.

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Popularity: unranked

I just learned that Mediahunter is ranked as one of the Top 150 Social Media Blogs in the World according to eCairn. Apparently this site is ranked 98th based on their formula of measuring various links:

• differentiating blogroll versus direct links,
• weighting the links based on the influence of the «source»,
• weighting more reciprocical links,
• counting links at blog or post level.

eCairn say, “The list is subjective and brought few questions and surprises – btw influence is subjective. It’s actually the list of influential bloggers in the social media marketing community more than a list of social media marketing blogs.”

That’s the interesting thing about online compared to other areas of influence. In most cases influence is hard to measure and opinions often come into play. But links are the major currency online. They determine your Google PageRank and a large percentage of your traffic. Links are a vote for your site, and hence a relevant measure of influence.

Quite rightly, the leading bloggers on this list are the heavyweights of industry. Chris Brogan, Jeramiah Owyang, Brian Solis, Seth Godin and David Armano are all there. These are people I read every week so its not surprise to see them there.

Australia has surprisingly fewer names on this list than I would have expected. Gavin Heaton is our highest ranked blogger here, and once again that’s no surprise to me. I read Gavin’s blog a few times a week and link to it often, as do many others obviously.

But there is once common denominator amongst these top bloggers (that doesn’t include me) – these guys all produce great, thought provoking content week-in, week-out. Their influence might be measured by links, but its created by sheer quality.

Popularity: unranked

Social media steps out of the echo chamber

I only have time to attend a handful of conferences each year. Its often difficult to determine which are the best conferences to attend. You have to balance up the cost and the potential information reward for each conference.

Social media conferences are even harder to pick. Over the last 3 years I have attended quite a few social media conferences and events but the lingering impression I often have after each event is that the conference was preaching to the converted. Its been an increasing dilemma in the social media world….there are those who “get it” and those that don’t (yet). At most events I’ve attended the audience already “get it”.

Of course its great to have enthusiastic participants at your social media event, but it’d be a lot more valuable to the noise extended beyond the social media echo chamber to reach the people we’d really love to see “joining the conversation”…Ie leading corporate marketers.

That’s why I’m excited to be attending the iStrategy 2010 conference in Sydney in November. Here’s a social media conference that is very deliberately addressing marketing professionals from leading Australian organisations with the aim of “Bridging the gap in Social Media Marketing”.

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Popularity: 3%

In the past five years social media has snowballed to become a dominant force in media and marketing. Here in Australia we now spend more time online,  17.6 hours per week , than with any other media. Astoundingly, Australia leads the world in social media consumption averaging 6 hrs 52mins per person per month.

advertising must adapt to the new social media environment

So it is fair to say that social media is now having a significant impact on how people receive information and how they consume marketing.

Social media finally brings “people” into the marketing equation. Its possible to actually develop real relationships with consumers rather than just broadcast messages to them.

Bob MacDonald, CEO of Procter & Gamble, one of the world’s leading advertisers recently said,

What I would like to have is a one-on-one relationship with seven billion people in the world and be able to customize offerings for those seven billion people. Digital allows that relationship.

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Popularity: 3%

Social media is like golf

Last night at the New Institute meeting in Newcastle we had a great discussion about the benefits of social media in various walks of life. During the Q&A session at the end of the night came some questions about how people conduct themselves online and the potential risks.

The discussion prompted me to compare social media to golf.

My father has been a passionate golfer most of his life and has begun many a business deal on the golf course. He has told me repeatedly that golf provides a great insight into a person’s character. On the golf-course a person’s manners, etiquette, honesty and temperament are quickly revealed. He says the way a potential business partner conducts himself in a round of golf gives him an idea of how they will conduct themselves in business, and whether he wants to do business with them.

The same can be said about social media. The way people conduct themselves online provides a great insight into the person.

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Popularity: 9%

Up until now I have never really thought about LinkedIn as an inbound marketing tool. As a business owner, not someone considering a new career anytime soon, I have been a fairly passive member of LinkedIn. However after attending Social Media Club Sydney’s presentation last night I think I might have to take a fresh look at it as it may actually be a valuable inbound marketing tool for corporate marketers.

Michael Field, a Sydney-based marketing consultant, was second speaker for the night, outlining how LinkedIn is an amazing inbound marketing tool for his business and his biggest source of enquiries. Suddenly I was very interested in LinkedIn.

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Popularity: 10%

Meet the future of television, where broadcast TV and social media converge via the iPad. This video shows how the iPad can become a remote for your television viewing while also allowing you to share your viewing with friends. If you’re not convinced the television industry isn’t heading for major major change then this might convince you.

I originally saw this video on Mumbrella and tweeted out a link to it that generated big response because its just so interesting. So I thought I’d “file it away” here too.

Popularity: 7%

A friend of mine is organising his high school reunion using the Posterous blogging platform. He’s hoping that everyone will be able find and follow the information, and start a bit of a dialogue in the lead-up to the party.

If you’re interested in the Kotara High School Reunion 1983 then check out the site. It has some funny posts already that clearly set the tone for the event.

Popularity: 1%

Source: Adnews

Australia has the second highest social media penetration in Asia Pacific region (89.6%) with Facebook the number one site, according to new figures from comScore.

Australia fell just behind the Phillipines for social media penetration (90%) with internet users averaging 21 visits in February 2010 at 3.8 hours per visitor.

The report into social networking activity across the Asia-Pacific region – excluding China – found half (50.8%) of the total online population in the region visited a social networking site in February, reaching a total of 240.3 million visitors.

Facebook.com was ranked as the top social network across most regional markets including Australia, however the site was pipped to the top spot by Orkut in India, Mixi.jp in Japan, CyWorld in South Korea and Wretch.cc in Taiwan.

Across the region internet users averaged 2.5 hours on social networking sites during the month and visited the category an average of 15 times.

“While social networking continues to be one of the most popular and fastest growing Web activities in the world, its dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region exhibit significantly more individual market differentiation than in other global regions,” said Will Hodgman, comScore executive vice president for Asia Pacific.

“In some markets, such as the Philippines, Australia and Indonesia, social networking is one of the most popular Web activities reaching nearly 90% of the entire Internet population, while other markets report less PC-based social networking penetration, which can often be attributed to the high propensity to engage in social networking via mobile devices in these markets.”

Popularity: 6%