By now, most marketers agree that engaging their brands in social media is a good thing, but they also feel that they could be doing it better

According to a survey of 1,897 senior executives conducted by Weber Shandwick in partnership with Forbes Insights, 84% of the execs believe their brand’s sociability is not up to world-class standards.

What does it take to get there? In the infographic below, Weber Shandwick offers nine tips, including creating your own content for social media and planning social media activity across all channels. Brands would be wise to take that counsel. As they all agree, sociability is now a key component in driving brand reputation.

via What Drives Brand Sociablity? [INFOGRAPHIC].

Craigslist founder turned philanthropist Craig Newmark set out to discover which U.S. non-profits were the most effective social media users. It turns out, there doesn’t appear to be a correlation between social media savvy and an organization’s net worth.

“The deal is, it’s not about money, it’s about getting people to talk with each other to make people’s lives better,” says Newmark, who now focuses his energies on his non-profit craigconnects, which seeks to maximize the use of online tools for the common good.

via How Non-Profits Are Using Social Media.

Infographics are visual representations of information, or “data viz” as the cool kids call it these days. The term “data viz” comes from “data visualization,” which implies that sets of data will be displayed in a unique way that can be seen, rather than read. This visualization should not be left up to interpretation, it should instead be designed in a way that provides a universal conclusion for all viewers. In the simplest terms, infographics are not too different than the charts and graphs that programs like Excel have been spitting out for years.

via The Do’s And Don’ts Of Infographic Design – Smashing Magazine.

Grace Dobush at HOW Interactive Design is on a campaign to stop the madness. In her post, Quit it With All the Infographics Already, she points out several good reasons to think before inking an infographic, including:

Most infographics aren’t accessible for the visually impaired.

Most infographics aren’t search-engine optimized.

Those super-long infographics are practically useless on a mobile device.

Of all online infographics, 89% contain statistics of dubious veracity. (Err, percentage is madeup, which is sort of her point.)

Many infographics are just plain bad.

That’s not to say there aren’t reasons to use graphics. There are plenty of awesome graphical stories on news sites and blogs today. 10,000 Words highlights them often. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you need to go graphic goofy.

via Infographic Overload? – 10,000 Words.

The Most Popular People And Brands On Twitter, Facebook And Google+ [INFOGRAPHIC] – AllTwitter.

As regular readers of AllTwitter will know, Lady Gagareigns supreme amongst individual users on Twitter, but her little monsters are only good enough to place her third on Facebook, behind fellow music superstars Eminem and Rihanna. Gaga isn’t on Google+ at all, which is still dominated by tech celebrities such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Amidst the Facebook-centric society in which we now seem to live, it’s important to remember that groups of people around the world use social networks differently. We’ve taken a look at the social media breakdown in 10 countries — how they’re engaging with social networks, blogs and Internet culture.

Based on data provided by Nielsen, Facebook is clearly the favored social network. However, you might be surprised to see how runners-up like Twitter and LinkedIn rank on a global scale.

Take a peek at our infographic, and please let us know in the comments below which social networks are popular (or gaining popularity) in your country of residence.

Editor’s Note: Because reliable data about emerging online markets like China and India is difficult to source, they were regrettably omitted from this graphic.

via How the World Uses Social Networks [INFOGRAPHIC].

Fifteen years ago, in 1996, I was still in middle school. We had one computer (a really old Apple) in our house and logging onto AOL was by dial-up only, took at least five minutes and ended with that cheerful voice saying, “You’ve got mail!” (Anyone miss this?) The Internet has definitely changed a lot, and for the better, in a decade and a half.

For those of you interested in a visual representation of those changes, check out this wonderful infographic by Online University comparing the Internet of 1996 to today.

Some highlights:

In 1996, Americans spent 30 minutes per month surfing the web. Today, that number has skyrocketed to 27 hours.

Netscape claimed the third spot on a list of most popular site in ’96. I can barely remember what that is.

It now only takes 6 seconds for a page to load as compared to the 30 seconds it took back in the day.

via How Does the Internet of 1996 Compare to 2011? [INFOGRAPHIC] – 10,000 Words.

Here’s something to think about. How does your media use — everything from newspapers to radio to Facebook — compare to your parents? Your siblings? Your kids? Chances are how and when you spend time on each of these media is quite different.

AdAge posted this interesting infographic that drives that point home with data from a study by Magid Generational Strategies on how different generations use various media throughout the day. One interesting point I noticed was in the fine print: The percentages of media use at any given time do not add up to 100 percent. That’s because there’s an awful lot of media consumption multitasking, especially among the millennials.

via An Infographic Look At Generational Media Use – 10,000 Words.

Say what you will about the tidal wave that is social media: it’s over-hyped, a fad halfway through its 15 minutes, that <insert social network, platform, app> surely won’t be around in a few years’ time.

But take a look below at the steep curve of the user growth rate in all age ranges and demographics, and the continuing pervasiveness of social networking into every facet of work, play and life in general. It’s hard to argue that social media hasn’t changed forever how we interact and connect online. See for yourself:

via The Growth of Social Media: An Infographic | Search Engine Journal.

A great infographic from elisaDBI offering a guide to tracking social media as part of your online marketing mix.

The ROI is always a hot topic and one of the key questions marketers are are asking before giving the go ahead for campaigns. Some of the topline numbers are surprising. For instacne 50% of companies are unsure of the value of being on LinkedIn and 53% are unsure of the Twitter’s ROI. This gives a step by step guide beginning with defining the key performance indicators (KPIs should be measureable) through to checking your strategy.

via The guide to measuring the results of your social media strategy [infographic] | The Wall Blog.