In January, 3.6% of all referral traffic measured by Shareaholic came from Pinterest. This may seem  to be a fairly inconsequential amount, but in comparison to other better known social media networks it actually fares rather well.

Pinterest was only marginally behind Twitter (3.61%) and considerably ahead of YouTube, Google Plus, and LinkedIn for referral traffic generated. The significance of the figure is considerably enhanced when the number of active Pinterest users is taken into account; the site is dwarfed by those other networks in terms of size but has a comparable or better click through rate.

Pinterest is ideal for companies directly selling products to consumers. The company can ‘pin’ its products to boards to share with other users. It is also possible to create different boards to group similar types of products or to categorise boards by market; children, teens and so on.  It can also help a company’s search engine optimisation efforts by providing high quality links back to a website.

There are many social media options for companies to use for marketing and it is virtually impossible to maintain an effective presence over them all. However, Pinterest with its high referral rate may be worth taking a look at.

It is not the first time a big social network has gone public; LinkedIn launched a share offering last May, but the $350 million that sale raised will look like pocket change compared to the cash that will pour into Facebook’s coffers.

This increase in Facebook’s financial resources is certain to underline the company’s dominance, not just as a social network for individuals, but also as a platform where businesses will have to be represented. This fact is underlined by the founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg who, in an open letter to accompany the IPO, wrote that the company was giving people the power to ‘transform many of our core institutions and industries’.

Company pages are already well established on Facebook but they are likely to increasingly become a necessity in the future, particularly for companies offering consumer goods and services.  In an increasingly social world, it will no longer be possible for companies who want to succeed to hide behind an anonymous contact form on a website.

The public are likely to progressively demand direct interaction that occurs in the public arena. For many companies this may be a frightening prospect, but for the ones that place an emphasis on quality and good service it provides an opportunity to shine.

The social future of business offers both risks and rewards. The first step is for companies that want to avoid the pitfalls and take advantage of the opportunities that social media can deliver is to have a true understanding of how social media works, a subject that is comprehensively covered in our workshops.

For many, this is a natural evolution in the science of search. After all, internet use over the last few years has increasingly moved to social networks and therefore it is natural that search should follow into that web space.

However, opponents of the change (and there are many) argue that the results are far too heavily weighted in favour of Google’s own Google Plus network and represent a backdoor route for the company  to force people into adopting its network.

Currently, Facebook and Twitter results are not listed because, Google says, their competitors have forbidden the deep indexing of their sites. Google has publicly stated that it is willing to work with its rival companies to include their results, which may be necessary as a number of politicians in both the USA and Europe have questioned whether Google’s new update falls foul of regulations governing monopolies.

According to Google CEO Larry Page, the Google Plus network is growing at an impressive rate. Last week’s financial statement from the company claimed that the service had 90 million users and that 60% visited daily. However, many observers claimed the figures were misleading and Google has been coy about reporting how much actual interaction occurred on the network.

Whatever the truth, Google Plus still has a long to go before matching market leader Facebook, which claims 50% of its 800 million users log in daily.

The increasing rapidity with which Google changes its search algorithm is an indication of how fast things are moving in the world of internet marketing and SEO.

In the past year, Panda, Caffeine, Freshness and Search Plus Your World are all Google updates that have fundamentally altered the way search works. There is no longer a unified search return; different users will get different results dependent on their location and social networks.

The results of these changes are that online ranking is now dependent on many more factors. Today, SEO techniques require a fully diversified approach that takes into account on page optimisation, backlinks, a content strategy, social media and additional factors. The combined use of these practices is necessary to keep ahead of your competitors and maintain a highly visible presence over the whole of the internet.

The internet is evolving at such a rapid pace that staying ahead of the game is no simple matter. Large companies often have the resources for their marketing departments to keep abreast of the changes, however small enterprises do not have this luxury. Therefore, outsourcing to professional companies represents a sensible solution to the increasing complexity of internet marketing.

When undertaking a search the new update, known as ‘Search, Plus Your World’, provides search users with results drawn in part, from content shared by people in the user’s Google Plus network. However, the change has caused disagreement in the tech industry not least among Google’s competition in the world of social networks.

Twitter was particularly critical of the change describing it as a ‘bad day for the internet’ and claiming that it ‘warped’ search results. Other industry experts voiced concerns that the update skewed results and led to a decline in the world’s most popular search engine’s ability to provide the most relevant results. They claimed that the failure to include results from other social networks like Facebook and Twitter was a mistake.

Google hit back that its terms of service with both those networks did not allow it to perform the kind of deep searches required to include the information in their results and claimed it was prepared to discuss the issue with rival companies.

Quality of search results was not the only issue seized on by critics of the update. Google, which has already drawn the attention of lawmakers with regard to its potential monopoly over online advertising, was – according to some observers – in breach of anti-trust regulations regarding Search, Plus Your World.

They argued that Google’s dominant position in the world of search did not allow it to discriminate against rivals.

Its redesigned internet TV service, BT Vision, incorporates social media elements in order to offer a more personalised service.

The move comes as Netflix, the internet film and TV service, launched in the UK last week.

BT Vision will be introduced within the next few weeks and will offer users a large library of on-demand content. The pay-TV service includes sports and films along with other kinds of TV programmes.

Social networking is also expected to be a key element of BT Vision, perhaps in order to help it compete with Sky. Sky have recently launched a social networking feature in their TV packages that enables viewers to share what they are watching and chat about it with others in real time.

Ian Livingston, chief executive of BT, told the Financial Times recently: “BT is focused on bringing true interactivity to the TV set, which is the most-watched screen in the house.

“That means on-demand services; it means the availability of buying things as you watch it; to have personalised services; to know what your friends like and what they think of it. I think that will change viewing habits quite considerably. It won’t happen overnight but I think it’s the start of something quite big.”

Listen With Friends lets Facebook users listen along with any of their friends who are playing music.

Alexandre Roche, a product designer at Facebook, wrote a blog post about the feature last week in which he said: “ This feature lets you listen along with any of your friends who are currently listening to music. You can also listen together in a group while one of your friends plays DJ.

“You can listen to the same song, at the exact same time—so when your favourite vocal part comes in you can experience it together, just like when you’re jamming out at a performance or dance club.”

The feature works via the chat sidebar. When a Facebook user is listening to a song, a music note will appear next to their name. To join them in listening to the track, users can hover over their friend’s name and then click the “Listen With” button.

Users do need to share the same music service in order to use the feature, with Spotify and Rdio being the only two services that are currently used by Facebook. If a user attempts to listen to a song with an incompatible music player, they will be prompted to install the right one instead.

Listen With Friends is also part of Facebook chat, meaning that users can chat online about what they are listening to.

According to new research from the Royal Bank of Scotland Corporate & Institutional Banking, nearly nine out of ten businesses will invest more in social media during the coming 12 months.

In total, 87% of companies with a turnover of at least £25m said that they saw social media as a cost-effective communications tool. More than a third (38%) said that social media improved their commercial or reputational standing.

Senior executives who were questioned for the research also said that they were using tablets more than ever before. Nearly half of them (47%) said that they use tablets on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, 25% of organisations who had increased their social media spend in the last year said that it had resulted in a positive impact for their brand. Nearly 40% of organisations who are planning to increase their social media spend for next year say that they are doing so just to keep up with industry trends and competitor activity.

John Dixon, head of technology, media and telecoms from Royal Bank of Scotland CIB, said: “UK businesses clearly understand the importance of social media.

“It is an effective and cost-effective tool, and its increased popularity comes at a time of increased pressures on marketing. The challenge is for firms to maximise their investments beyond 2012.”

According to a new research report from KMPG, the global professional services firm, organisations in China, India and Brazil are 20 to 30% more likely to use social media than those in Europe and the other main developed countries.

The statistics are similarly different in terms of managers’ use of social media sites.

In the UK, a total of 80% of managers use social media sites such as LinkedIn several times a week. The countries generally acknowledged as emerging markets – China and Brazil – beat this figure hands down.  In China, a massive 98% of managers use social media sites, compared with a similar figure of 95% in Brazil.

Tudor Aw, KPMG’s head of technology for Europe, said: “The emerging markets seem to be quickly finding that social networks offer a relatively low cost opportunity to leapfrog the competition in developed markets.”

However, the survey did find that 70% of companies across the world see social media as a viable and effective mechanism for business.

The report also found that organisations that attempt to block their employees’ access to social networking sites will ultimately lose the fight.

Around a third of employees in companies with blocked access admitted to using social media sites at the office, sometimes tampering with their work devices in order to do so.

According to a new report from LexisNexis entitled Global Social Media Check-up: A Global Audit of Law Firm Engagement in Social Media Methods, many firms are signed up to sites like LinkedIn but do not engage further with them after setting up a page.

In total, 85 of the 110 global law firms surveyed by LexisNexis said that they favoured LinkedIn over any other social media site.

However, many of those firms have just registered a page for their company, rather than actively engaging with other users. The report says that this is a missed opportunity, as law firms could be using LinkedIn to connect with clients, recruit for staff and manage their reputation online.

The highest number of law firms using social media are in North America, whilst many law firms in Western Europe are also getting on board with it. However, there is a greater level of engagement in the UK and Holland than in Switzerland, France and Russia.

One of the report’s authors stated: “Social networking was once thought to be just for socialising – for sharing your social life with your friends and for making new ones — but it has gone far beyond that.

“With some notable exceptions, now is the time for law firms to adapt their business models and experiment with social media as part of their client acquisition and retention programmes, or risk being left behind.”