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If you’re a frequent traveler, or just a social media addict, it’s likely that you’ve seen or complained about airline troubles somewhere on Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare. Have you ever wondered which airline has the worst social media reputation? According to Amplicate, which tracks social media sentiment, that would be American Airlines. Only 12 percent of social media opinions about the airline were positive. Yikes!

This week, Netflix took a huge hit when it reported that it had lost 805,000 paid subscribers following the company’s price hike. Its remaining 23.79 million U.S. subscribers continue to use the service loyally, however. According to a report by Sandvine Intelligent Broadband Networks, Netflix accounts for 32.7 percent of U.S. Internet bandwidth. Interestingly, viewers have been relying less on their PCs to access the movie database and are turning toward game consoles, set-top boxes, smart TVs and mobile devices for their film fix.

Speaking of videos, comScore Video Metrix just released data showing that 85.3 percent of the U.S. Internet audience watched videos online during September. YouTube topped the list of video viewing sites with 161 million unique viewers last month, followed by VEVO, Microsift Sites, Viacom Digital, Facebook and Hulu. Continue Reading…

Twitter now has 100 million monthly active users and half of them log in to the site on a daily basis.

In a study called “The Meaning of Like,” ExactTarget found that Facebook users between the ages of 15 and 24 generally “like” a brand or company page as a means of self-expression and for public endorsement. Older Facebook users (age 25 and up), tend to expect something of value in exchange for their “like.”

In another study, half of the college students surveyed said they were worried or concerned about their addiction to Facebook.

Wondering how click through rates compare between the two biggest search engines? At Bing, the top position receives a 9.66 percent CTR and has a total of 26.32 percent CTR for the home page. Google edges out Bing with an 18.2 percent CTR for the top result and 52.32 percent CTR for the entire first page.

Ninety-two percent of marketers say that content creation is either “very effective” or “somewhat effective” for SEO. What is the other 8 percent thinking?! For more about the importance of content creation and SEO, take a look at this infographic.

Are you a big fan of fantasy football? Can you imagine how it could exist without the Internet and search? This article from Search Engine Watch takes a look at the effect of fantasy sports (and the NFL) on search statistics.

This week, the New York Federal Reserve Bank announced its plans to begin a social media monitoring project to gauge online sentiment about the Fed’s actions and general economic policy. Some people (i.e. civil libertarians and activists against big government) are irate and are likening the Fed’s actions to those of Big Brother. But can you really fault the Fed for wanted to know what people are saying about them online? The private sector has been doing it for years.

As an ORM company, we were interested in finding out just what monitoring tactics the Fed was interested in using. Going beyond basic article gathering to gage public sentiment, the Fed wants to know what individuals are saying, and was intelligent enough to target Facebook and Twitter as the perfect realm for learning the truth. Of course they’ll also track their repute as judged by news sources like the Wall Street Journal, CNN and the Associated press (all named in the request for proposal), but it shows that the corporation cares about more than economists or financial bloggers. And most interestingly, they also requested that vendors offer a monitoring system that allows people monitoring the project for the Fed can login to and track results (hey, that sounds kind of familiar…).

We commend the decision of the New York Federal Reserve Bank to be active in the monitoring of their online reputation. While they’ll likely find that many people aren’t happy with the economy and the actions of large financial corporations, hopefully the Fed will find ways to interact with individuals online to alter their tactics and hopefully eliminate some of the angrier sentiments floating around online. Fast Company has a great look at the Fed’s program as well.

Worried because Justin Bieber has you beat in Twitter followers? Don’t. Fifty-three percent of adults follow specific brands online; only 32 percent follow celebrities. Bnet has four more surprising social media statistics that can affect your business.

In acquisition news this week LinkedIn purchased IndexTank, a real-time search startup that will help the social networking company improve its internal search technology.  Google acquired Social Grapple, a young company that describes itself as a social graph analytics service. TechCrunch noted that this is likely more of a talent acquisition for the search giant instead of a technological one.

When you put a post on your personal or business Facebook wall, the goal is to have it seen by a maximum number of people, correct? According to analytics company PageLever, your status update stays on the Facebook newsfeed for nearly 29 hours, but likes and comments taper off after about 23 hours. Continue Reading…

Facebook users can now elect to translate content on foreign fan pages into their own language, thanks to a new application powered by Bing’s Translator technology.

Using a third-party tool like Hootsuite to post to your Facebook page? You may want to reconsider. Applum recently reported that posts that come to Facebook via third-party applications receive an average of 70 percent fewer likes and comments per fan. Why? Facebook’s algorithm actually punishes third-party updates. Read more at Ragan’s PR Daily.

No surprise here – among those Twitter users who use the service to complain about a company, about one-half expect the company to read and reply to their tweet. Of those who received responses addressing their complaints, 83% reported that they liked hearing from the company. Continue Reading…