Baltimore, Md., Jul 8, 2012 / 04:56 pm (CNA).- It was the end of March when the violence in Syria became unbearable for Salwa, a young mother who lived in the besieged city of Homs with her husband and four children.

After more than a year of almost daily bloodshed, she and her family left behind everything they owned, and fled Syria with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing.

They crossed the border into neighboring Jordan, where they finally found safety in the town of Mafraq. There, with the help of Catholic Relief Services, Caritas Jordan is helping families like Salwa’s get through the crisis.

Salwa told Caritas Jordan volunteers that she’s grateful her family is safe, but that her children are still fearful. “Whenever they hear fireworks—often part of local wedding celebrations in Jordan—they fear that the violence has followed them from their home in Syria to Jordan.”
 
CRS helps thousands of Syrians affected by crisis

The violence that erupted in Syria in March 2011 has spiraled into a tumultuous, terrifying conflict and has led to paralyzing fear for innocent civilians—many of them women, children and the elderly. It’s unclear exactly how many Syrians have been displaced by the fighting, but the United Nations estimated at the end of May that at least 500,000 Syrians had fled their homes for the safety of neighboring countries.

How do marketers determine social media ROI?

It’s certainly been a hard, especially when you consider that the majority of CEOs believe that marketers don’t really know what they’re doing. Some 73 percent of CEOs think that marketers lack business credibility, and more than three-quarters (77 percent) think that they don’t talk often enough about what really matters: sales.

But there’s the rub. The rules have changed. Measurable success in social media comes in a variety of different forms, including customer support, increased brand equity and market research, and businesses have to work hard to ensure that their message is seen by being creative and patient. And yes: if you build it, sales will come. Those brands that go the extra mile can and will see a noticeable boost in revenues, as this infographic shows.

If the World did not have internet – here what will happy click read more – What say you?

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The speculation game over Twitter’s revenue is going wild. Some believe the company will bring in $226 million in revenue this year, others predict closer to $400 million, and some even think it will reach a billion in just two years.

And while it’s still private, we probably won’t be hearing any official numbers from Twitter for a while – but this infographic from TheNology.com explores what we do know.

Whether Twitter’s revenue will reach $540 million in 2014 – or whether it will explode to $1 billion as two sources told Bloomberg this month – is up for debate. The infographic explores both possibilities, and it does point out that many advertisers prefer Twitter to Facebook, which may lend credence to the high predictions.

The various types of advertising solutions on Twitter are also explored in this infographic, and a few case studies including the Red Cross and Airbnb are included to highlight how big advertisers are using Promoted Tweets, Trends and Accounts creatively.

While LinkedIn remains the top way that headhunters find talented employees, businesses with top-quality Facebook pages can attract quality applicants, too.   Canadian business publication Benefits Canada offered some ways that companies can use their Facebook pages to not only connect with their fans, but with future employees. Writer Tod Maffin explains that 63 percent […]

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Google+ may have been slow to catch on in the wake of the larger and more popular Facebook, but don’t write the social network off just yet.  This infographic shows a side-by-side comparison of the two networks, each of which caters to a slightly different audience. Which one is right for your brand?

With 170 million registered users, Google’s social layer, Google+, is finding a niche among young, tech-savvy professionals who like to post and share content.  Oddly enough, pictures are what Google+ users share the most.

On Facebook, the photo-sharing feature is ranked fourth behind “likes,” status updates, and comments. Facebook users spend more than seven hours per month on the social network, engaging with one another on a personal level.

This may be why Google+ is better for promoting content, while Facebook works well for traditional marketing aimed at a broad audience. The most popular brands on Facebook are consumer favorites like Coca-Cola, Disney, and Starbucks; while Google+ favors its own products, like Android and Chrome, as well as the tech blog Mashable.

For more surprising statistics and tips for creating a marketing strategy, check out this infographic from Pardot below:

Catholic news, Jun 11, 2012 / 05:41 pm (CNA).- An ultimatum from the Syrian armed opposition’s military chief caused over 1,000 Christians to flee the west Syrian town of Qusayr, adding to fears that believers may be forced out of Syria.

“The Christian communities fear being targeted, destroyed or driven out,” said Neville Kyrke-Smith, Aid to the Church in Need’s U.K. director. “We all need to stand in prayer and solidarity now.”

Kyrke-Smith, who returned from Lebanon on June 11, told CNA that the report of Christian flight echoes the concerns he heard from bishops, priests, and religious communities concerned about Christians’ fate in neighboring Syria.

“The message time and again was ‘please do not forget the Christians of the Middle East,’” he reported.

Syrian opposition military chief Abdel Salam Harba had given an ultimatum for Christians to leave Qusayr, a town near Homs, by June 8. Some mosques in the city repeated the message in announcements from their minarets, Fides news agency reports.

Only 1,000 Christians remained in the town, which was home to 10,000 Christians before the conflict began between the Syrian government and opposition forces.

The reasons for the latest ultimatum are unclear. Some sources say it helps avoid more Christian suffering, while others say it reveals “a continuity focused on discrimination and repression.” Others say Christians’ open loyalty to the state is the reason they are driven away.

Some sources told Fides that Islamic Salafist extremists groups in the ranks of the armed opposition consider Christians to be “infidels” and are ready to start a “sectarian war.”

The extremists reportedly confiscate Christians’ goods and conduct executions.

By Habib Battah

Average Daily Viewership Share in Lebanon

LBC 38.4%
Jadeed: 35 %
MTV 28.7%
OTV 25.4%
Future 16.7%
NBN 12.3%
Manar 12%
TL: 11.6%
Future News: 10.9%


*Source: IPSOS STAT Beirut

 The television drama unfolding across the Middle East has gripped Lebanese audiences the same as any Arab country. But while the images of upheaval broadcast over the last year have ignited a fury that has gone viral, ejecting viewers off the couch and onto the streets in one city after another, Lebanon remains relatively quiet, seemingly immune from the contagion of revolution. As the walls of fear crumble around them, the country’s decades-old leaders are as entrenched as they have ever been. One major reason why change has so far eluded Lebanon can be attributed to the nascent, if not enabling role played by the country’s news media or lack thereof.  

While Beirut is often lauded for having the freest and most vibrant television landscape in the region, the reality is that most Lebanese stations produce very little journalism. And ironically, the Lebanese are spoiled for choice with a whopping eight local TV news organizations–roughly the equivalent number of stations serving Los Angeles, which is more than double Lebanon’s population. It’s not that Lebanese channels face the kind of government interference present in most Arab states, where networks of stations are state-owned, and thus limited to a monolithic regurgitation of platitudes. In fact, Lebanon’s sole government-held broadcaster is woefully unpopular and the privately-owned stations convey such diametrically opposed views of reality that even the concept of breaking news is disputed. Major political speeches, visits by foreign heads of state and even explosions are carried live by some and dismissed as unimportant by others who may refuse to interrupt a regular programming slot of cartoons or soap operas.

Neither are local stations particularly friendly to authority. Local channels parody and vilify Lebanese leaders with abandon, even adding music and special effects. Everyone has a laugh and yet little changes. Of course viewers know that most Lebanese ‘news’ channels openly function as audiovisual instruments of the political machines that sponsor them: Al Manar is Hezbollah’s “beacon” of resistance, Orange TV proudly doses itself in the colors of former general Michel Aoun’s orange movement and Future News is little more than a communications wing of Saad Hariri’s Future movement. Yet despite its newly refurbished multi-million dollar glass studios, encapsulated in futuristic corten steel panels, it is now the most unpopular channel in Lebanon according to figures obtained by Ipsos. At a 10.9 percent average daily viewership, Future News trails closely behind state broadcaster Tele Liban at 11.6 percent and Al Manar at 12 percent. Perhaps encouragingly, Lebanon’s top three performers– LBC at 38.4 percent, Al Jadeed at 35 percent and MTV at 28.7 percent– do not claim to directly represent a political party or particular politician. But they’re not doing much better job at informing audiences.

Lady Gaga might have more Twitter followers than anyone else, but some new insights from Twitter itself suggest that she’s not the most influential.

In fact, she’s not even up there in the upper echelon of most influential tweeters. Neither are Justin Bieber, Britney Spears or even Barack Obama.

The most influential tweeters appear to be religious leaders, many of whom are evangelical Christians with large offline followings.

Robin Sloan, a Twitter employee, asked himself the question “Why are some tweets more popular than others?” ten months ago. And he got his answer.

According to the New York Times, Sloan explored retweet and @mention data surrounding a set of tweets that were “punching way above their weight.” But he didn’t recognize the names of the tweeters as pop stars, executives, actors or sports stars.

Rather than celebrities or business leaders, it was Christian leaders like Joyce Meyer, Max Lucado and Andy Stanley who were sending waves through the Twitter-verse, their tweets averaging 30 time more interaction than tweets from Lady Gaga, despite the latter’s 25 million follower count.

With just under a million followers, Joyce Meyer is packing quite a punch with every tweet she sends, getting 170 reactions per 50,000 followers on average. Compare that to Justin Bieber’s 59 reactions for every 50,000 followers (and his 22.6 million follower count), and you’ll begin to see just how influential religious messages are on Twitter.

    Twitter unveiled a new logo today and I must need another cup of coffee because I needed a lot of help to see the difference. Thank goodness for TechCrunch, which breaks down the differences thoroughly (“haircut, sleeker, upturned beak”) and characterizes the logo as “optimistic.” The before-and-after image at left is courtesy of […]