Social Media Digest: Google Dominates, FB Declines and MO Tweets

Welcome back to our weekly installment of what’s hot in the world of social media. For you to peruse today whilst firing off the last few emails of the week are:

1. Google Sites accounted for 91.75% of all searches conducted in the UK in December 2011, up by 0.67% since November 2011, according to Experian Hitwise’s latest Search Engine and Social Analysis. Google was the only search engine that grew over the period, with Microsoft and Yahoo! Sites both falling by more than a quarter of a per cent.

2. A war of words broke out this week between Google and Twitter. It all started when it was announced that Google had added a new function called ‘Search, plus Your World’ that gives prominence to content from Google+ within search results. There are actually three new features – People and Pages, Personal Results and Profiles in Search. The functions will become available over the next few days to users signed-in and searching in English on Google.com…

3. …Fearing Google’s push to dominate, Twitter hit back, resoundly criticising Google, who in turn retailiated with a nice playground retort: “You Quit Us”. Time will tell how this argument will develop but we’re all ears here at Umpf Towers.

4. Facebook’s dominance of UK visits to social networking sites is getting diluted as the category diversifies, while YouTube is experiencing steep growth, according to new data from Experian Hitwise. Facebook’s share of total visits to social networks in December dropped from 58.5% in 2010 to 51.3% in 2011. James Murray, market research analyst at Experian Hitwise, said that Facebook is not losing visitors, but the market is diversifying “rapidly”. He said the number of visits to Facebook from Britons during the year remained static at the 1.3 billion mark. In reference to these latest stats, here is our infographic based on our research into social media usage in the UK (right).

5. Employers could face legal action for vetting job applicants through Facebook and TwitterEmployers could face legal action for vetting job. The use of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook by employers to vet potential employees could see companies sued for discrimination new research has claimed. According to research conducted by psychology consultancy OPP, employers to check the social networking sites of potential employees could be breaking the law.

6.  After a slew of negative revelations over the last few days, Michelle Obama attempted to drum up some good publicity today using a true 21st-century tool – Twitter. The First Lady has finally joined the micro-blogging site, and collected thousands of followers in just a few hours on the site. But those hoping for juicy revelations may be disappointed – as her feed will be managed by her husband’s staff, and used mainly as a campaigning tool.