According to an analysis of 600 US-based B2B SMB websites conducted by Optify, Facebook is for traffic, and Twitter is for leads. The study, which evaluated over 62 million site visits, 215 million page views and 350,000 leads in 2012, found that visitors coming from Facebook made up 54% of all social media-sourced site visits, and those from Twitter just 32%. Nevertheless, Twitter accounted for 82% of all social media-originated leads, while Facebook accounted for 9% of leads.

A new Edelman study showed that search engines are a more trusted source than traditional media. The study found that respondents believe that search engines are less of 'an interpreter of events', and more of a 'presenter of events'.  However, the study revealed that social media, a proxy for word-of-mouth, is low on the list of trusted sources.

SocialEyez has put together an infogrpahic entitled 'Monthly Highlights of Social Media 2012' that highlights the top three discussed subjects on all social media platforms in the MENA region for each month of 2012. The data was collected from 17 countries from across the MENA region, and top subjects were determined based on volume of discussion.  The top 36 topics were extracted from monitoring the top ten trending subjects in the Arab world on a day to day basis throughout the Sunday-Thursday working week in the region.

According to new projections from J.P. Morgan, online advertising will pass a symbolic milestone this year, becoming one out of every four dollars spent by U.S. advertisers. According to analysts, the growth is being fueled by advertisers shifting budgets from analogue media to follow consumer time spent with digital media, especially Internet-connected mobile devices, as well as the continuing momentum of social media platforms like Facebook. “We are projecting Internet advertising in the U.S. to grow to $43.5 billion in 2013.”