Among Millennials (ages 18-35), men and women display different priorities when it comes to their preferred pastimes, according to [pdf] survey results from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and Lachman Associates. Presented with a list of uses of free time and asked to select up to 5 favorite activities, a leading 58% of men said they watch TV, with about 4 in 10 saying they listen to or play music (43%), play computer games (42%), spend time with friends (41%) and spend time with family (38%). Among women, spending time with family (57%) is most popular, closely followed by watching TV (54%), with reading (47%), spending time with friends (43%), and listening to or playing music (39%) rounding out the top 5 most frequent activities.

via What Do Millennials Like To Do With Their Free Time?.

iacom and its Vicaom International Media Networks VIMN division have released a study examining the relationship between TV and social media usage. The study, which involved online surveys conducted in the US, UK, Germany, Brazil, and Russia with more than 5,000 Viacom viewers aged 13-49 who use 2 or more social media platforms on at least a weekly basis, reveals that viewers average 10 TV-related activities on social media on a weekly basis. The most popular of those are: interacting with friends and fans 72%; searching for info and show schedules 66%; sharing or recommending 61%; watching full clips and trailers 61%; and following/liking a TV show 57%.

via Top 5 TV-Related Social Media Activities.

Consumers in Japan have been lukewarm on social networks compared with other similarly internet-advanced economies. According to eMarketer estimates, the percent of the population on social networks in Japan this year—38%—will be lower than in South Korea, the US, most of the Western European countries and even Russia and Brazil.

via Twitter’s Popularity in Japan Rivals Facebook – eMarketer.

Socialbakers has released its latest “Socially Devoted” figures for Q1, and the results are a mixed bag. On the one hand, the average response rate grew 6% points quarter-over-quarter to 38%, after only improving by 4% points in the preceding 6 months. But on the other hand, that means that significantly fewer than half of questions posted to brands’ Twitter profiles were answered. What’s more, the average response time increased by 10%, from 6 hours in Q4 2012 to more than 6-and-a-half hours in Q1.

via Got Questions For Brands on Twitter? Expect A Response 38% of the Time.

Senior executives from around the world aren’t that enthusiastic about social media marketing, according to new figures released by Doremus and the Financial Times from their annual “Decision Dynamics” survey. 51% of respondents feel that advertising in social media is more intrusive than advertising in a magazine or newspaper, while only one-third believe that a social media presence enhances a company’s reputation. The study results indicate that, in general, while executives are embracing online and mobile activities, they’re not doing so at the expense of traditional media.

via Senior Execs Not Convinced About Social’s Worth.

Netflix isn’t the only video service eating up North American bandwidth, although it is the largest, according to [download page] Sandvine’s “Global Internet Phenomena Report 1H 2013.” The report reveals that Netflix accounts for 32.3% share of North American peak downstream fixed access traffic, a slight dip from H1 2012, with YouTube next at 17.1%, up from 13.8% in the researchers’ H1 2012 study. When it comes to mobile traffic, the opposite trends are true: YouTube leads with 27.3% share of peak traffic, but is down from 31%, while Netflix is far back at 4%, but up from 2.2% the prior year.

via Netflix + YouTube = Half of North American Peak Downstream Traffic.

With more than 2 million fans on Facebook, Carnival Cruise Lines has a vibrant social media presence. While Facebook has been a worthwhile and efficient engagement portal for the cruiser, Carnival is constantly looking for new ways to engage its current fans and to reach fresh audiences.The goal of delivering valuable content in a fun and unique way led Carnival to explore advertising opportunities with music streaming company Spotify. As one of the top 10 most integrated social apps on Facebook, according to April 2013 research from AppData, and with 20 million active users, Spotify seemed an ideal destination for Carnival to provide a music-focused, social experience that would resonate with a younger, millennial user base.

via Case Study: With Spotify Playlist, Carnival Engages a Millennial Audience – eMarketer.

If helping our clients to be more visible is the heartbeat of public relations, then learning to integrate basic SEO skills into the work we do is essential to keeping that heartbeat strong. SEO is a must-know skill in PR.

Every senior-level PR and content marketing professional should have a solid understanding of how SEO works and how it applies to their own work.

via 3 best practices of SEO for PR | Articles | Home.

Twitter activity is highly concentrated among a small subset of heavy users, according to an analysis from researchers at the University of Illinois, published in First Monday. The study used Twitter Decahose as the basis of its analysis, with the data set examined over a period of 39 days constituting about 0.9% of Tweets ever sent and 35.6% of all active users as of December 2012. Among the highlights of the study was the revelation that the top 1% of Twitter users accounted for 20% of all tweets. Expanding that out a little, the top 5% accounted for 48% of all tweets and the top 15% accounted for 85%.

via Twitter’s 1% Generates 20% of Tweets.

SimplyMeasured-Interbrand100-Instagram-Adoption-May2013The number of Interbrand 100 brands with an Instagram account has grown to 67 as of May 1st, per a new study by Simply Measured, up from 59 on February 1st. While that’s not quite at the same adoption level as Pinterest (76) or Google+ (77), those brands using Instagram boast significantly larger audiences than those using Pinterest, per the report. Much of that has to do with levels of activity: while some top brands have “placeholder” accounts on Pinterest, the percentage of top brands’ Instagram accounts that have posted photos has grown by 10 points to 65.

via Top Brands Paying More Attention to Instagram.