That’s a great question. Below are a few facts as to why social media is on fire.

• Twitter users welcome 2012 with 16,000 tweets-per-second, more than doubling last year’s record. (Source: MediaBistro)
• 82% of the world’s online population are determined to be reached by social networking sites, representing 1.2 billion users around the world. (Source: comScore)
• Pinterest (the fastest growing website in history) has an average of 1.36 million users daily and accounts for 3.6% of all referral traffic (more than Youtube, Google+ and Linkedin)
• Of consumers using a connected device to shop, 40% are actively engaged with their favorite brands via Facebook and say they are actively shopping on the social network. (Source: Zmags)
• One-third of companies have a senior executive who is responsible for social media company-wide. (Source: Booz & Company/Buddy Media)

Facebook is like your grade school, high school, college, and graduate school reunions rolled into one (all day, every day) – except that you have other friends, aunts and uncles, second cousins, and random people from other networks requesting to be your new Facebook friend.

Pause for a deep breath.

And guess what? Just about every brand, athlete, and mom & pop shop is vying for your “Likes” on Facebook. Everyone wants to be liked. We’ll make sure you’re liked by everyone!

If you’re not on Facebook, you probably don’t exist. 500 million strong… and growing.

The new Ford Explorer launch on Facebook generated more traffic than a Super Bowl ad.

definition – a short burst of inconsequential data.

At Fifty & Five, we don’t exactly subscribe to this definition. Yes, we love the 140 character messages, but we think these short bursts of data have a significant impact on your brand.

We work hand-in-hand with your team to develop a targeted plan to attract loyal followers. Whether you need to increase your brand presence online, push more clicks to your e-commerce site, or collect warm leads for your sales business. Heck, maybe you want to do all three. Fifty & Five will script the perfect conversation for your company!

We’ll grow your Twitter following fast.

Bottom line… we get Twitter, even if you don’t.

Twitter’s simplicity and real time messaging enable breaking news, business updates and information to hit the web instantly without filters and censorship.

Google+ has more than 90 million users and is growing bigger continually. Google has bigger plans for plus than any other service it has ever launched. Any business, especially online businesses that need to sell goods online, can use it as a powerful marketing tool.

By installing the Google+ badge to your business page you can directly connect with millions of potential audience across the globe and build a strong relationship.

Needless to say, the badge annotate people to follow your business and regularly stay updated; be it breaking news, new product launch, promotions, getting feedback, etc. Interests of people have never been the same and circles make it easy to talk to them in a sensible manner.

The good news here is that Google has planned to reward businesses who adopt this service.

There must be an extra “S” added to SEO, this is because Google+ plays a vital role in Search Engine Optimization. Let’s call it Social Search Engine Optimization.

Check it out… Check In!

It’s the next big thing. Seriously.

With over 12 check-ins per second and one million per day, this is an up-and-comer with some huge marketing potential for your business.

Foursquare offers the technology to enhance internal relations among employees. This includes awarding HR-related points to people who participate and perform various activities. Others use FourSquare to encourage attendance at meetings and monthly webcasts. Attendance can be confirmed for employees who check-in when they get to the office too.

This rising star in the social media scene is garnering quite a bit of attention and buzz for its ability to not only capture a large percentage of market share, but to do it so quickly.

Start watching YouTube videos right now and it’ll take you 400 years to get through most of the content.

Good luck with that.

Pop quiz:
How many YouTube videos are watched in a single day?
a) 10,000
b) 100,000
c) 1,000,000
d) None of the above
Answer: D (try 100 million videos viewed every freakin’ day)

It’s not rocket science, people, these are cold hard facts about another social media site that you need to be utilizing.

We’ll show you how!

Over 37 million people watched the Volkswagen “Darth Vadar” television spot… on YouTube!