The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more—and instantly get information that’s relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.

Google’s Knowledge Graph isn’t just rooted in public sources such as Freebase, Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook. It’s also augmented at a much larger scale—  focusing on comprehensive breadth and depth. It currently contains more than 500 million objects, as well as more than 3.5 billion facts about and relationships between these different objects. And it’s tuned based on what people search for, and what we find out on the web.

The Knowledge Graph enhances Google Search in three main ways to start:

1. Find the right thing

Language can be ambiguous—do you mean Taj Mahal the monument, or Taj Mahal the musician? Now Google understands the difference, and can narrow your search results just to the one you mean

2. Get the best summary

With the Knowledge Graph, Google can better understand your query, so we can summarize relevant content around that topic, including key facts you’re likely to need for that particular thing.

3. Go deeper and broader

Finally, the Knowledge Graph can help you make some unexpected discoveries. You might learn a new fact or new connection that prompts a whole new line of inquiry.

Find Out More on the ‘Official Google Blog’

Today, they are releasing new 2012 research data, and the findings are clear—smartphone adoption has gone global. Today, Australia, U.K., Sweden, Norway, Saudi Arabia and UAE each have more than 50 percent of their population on smartphones. An additional seven countries—U.S., New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland—now have greater than 40 percent smartphone penetration. In the U.S., 80 percent of smartphone owners say they don’t leave home without their device—and one in three would even give up their TV before their mobile devices!

Google conducted this research to help people to better understand how mobile is changing our world. You can learn about mobile-specific usage trends, use this tool to create custom visualizations of data and more.

Read More at Google Blog

“Topics related to brand or about the brand were significant predictors of increased engagement,” says Sean Bruich, head of measurement at Facebook. “When pages post about topics related to brands, they increase engagement.”

The advice may seem obvious, but Bruich points out that many brands try to stay relevant by “just publishing the latest meme.”Facebook’s other advice to brands is to use photos, albums and videos to generate more “Likes” and to post a clear call to action (“Like this if…”) to increase comments. The company also confirmed the conventional wisdom that asking a question in a post will lead to more engagement.

Though the study took place during the period in which brands switched over to Timeline, the research didn’t delve into the topic. Despite that, some researchers, including Simply Measured, have seen a big difference in engagement with the new platform.

Read More at Mashable

The Chesterfield Hotel in Mayfair, London celebrates their 102^nd week at the top of the table.

Congratulations!

Download this list as a PDF here

(List is correct as of 15th May 2012)

The data in this list differs slightly to that of our Facebook list and is ranked according to the hotel’s influence on the twitter verse.

We’ve used twitter.grader.com to rank each hotel on twitter. This clever little app considers many different factors including number of followers, number of followings and number of posts (among many others). This creates a score, enabling each twitter account to be ranked out of all the accounts that have been graded in the twitter network.

It basically gives you an idea of the impact each tweet has.

The grade is out of 100 and represents the percentage of accounts that have less of an impact than yours. For example, a TwitterGrade of 95 means tweets from your account have more of an impact than tweets from 95% of all other graded accounts on twitter. Pretty impressive hey?!

As with all our lists, we’ve done our best to recognise every contender for the list but a few are bound to have slipped through the net. If you think your hotel should be included on the list, please let us know by commenting below, remembering to include your “@” twitter account name.

The list is open to all hotels in the UK.

Sheen Falls Lodge celebrate their 16th week victory at the top of the table this week.

Download the list as a PDF here

(List is correct as of 14^th May 2012)

The data in this list differs slightly to that of our Facebook list and is ranked according to the hotel’s influence on the twitter verse.

We’ve used twitter.grader.com to rank each hotel on twitter. This clever little app considers many different factors including number of followers, number of followings and number of posts (among many others). This creates a score, enabling each twitter account to be ranked out of all the accounts that have been graded in the twitter network.

It basically gives you an idea of the impact each tweet has.

The grade is out of 100 and represents the percentage of accounts that have less of an impact than yours. For example, a Twitter Grade of 95 means tweets from your account has more of an impact than tweets from 95% of all other graded accounts on twitter. Pretty impressive hey?!

As with our Facebook list, we’ve done our best to recognise every contender for the list but a few are bound to have slipped through the net. If you think your hotel should be included on the list, please let us know by commenting below, remembering to include your “@” twitter account name.

The list is open to all hotels in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Be sure to check back each week to see if your hotel has made the list.

Kinnitty Castle, Co.Offaly celebrate their 36th week at the top of the list, Well done!

Download the list as a PDF here

(List correct as of 14^th May 2012)

The list is by no means final so if you feel we’ve missed you out, please let us know by commenting below and your hotel/group could appear on next weeks list.

The list is based on the number of fans the Facebook page has and is open to all hotels in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

This list only considers Facebook Pages as opposed to groups and personal profiles.

Facebook Pages:

1. Access to a Page, however, can only be restricted by certain ages and locations.
2. Page admins can send updates to fans through the Page, and these updates will appear in the “Updates” section of fans’ inboxes.
3. There is no limit on how many fans you may send an update to, or how many total fans a Page can have.
4. Pages can host applications, so a Page can essentially be more personalized and show more content.
5. Pages can benefit from social ads that publicize the fan connection between a Page and a specific user.
6. Pages are better for brands, businesses, bands, movies, or celebrities who want to interact with their fans or customers without having them connected to a personal account, and have a need to exceed Facebook’s 5,000 friend cap.

Neither Groups nor Pages have great moderation features. If someone posts spam on your Group or your Page, you have to remove it manually, and you can also remove specific members.

So it’s up to you who best suits your business right now and going forward.

Be sure to check back every Monday to see if your hotel has made the list!

However, Facebook’s optimal posting times are slightly different than Twitter. Links sent between 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. get the most traction, with Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. being the best time to post on Facebook all week. Links posted after 8:00 p.m. and before 8:00 a.m. on Facebook also don’t get the most clicks. Similar to Twitter, bit.ly recommends not posting the links you want to go viral during the weekend. “While traffic starts to increase around 9:00 a.m., one would be wise to wait to post until 11am,” bit.ly said in a blog post on its site. “Traffic from Facebook fades after 4:00 p.m.” Meanwhile, Tumblr has a much different usage pattern than Facebook and Twitter. It’s suggested to wait until at least 4:00 p.m. ET. to post important content, and posts that go up after 7:00 p.m. get the most clicks during a 24-hour period. It’s also suggested that Friday evenings are a key time to post on Tumblr — a time bit.ly recommends avoiding on Facebook and Twitter. Bit.ly traffic from Tumblr peaks between 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, with similar traffic on Sunday, according to the study.

Read More on Mashable

While it remains to be seen whether those brands that joined the Google+ bandwagon early will be rewarded with ROI, there is some promising news according to social media analytics provider Simply Measured. It looked at the Interbrand Top 100 brands that are present on Google+ and found that, six months in, 22% of the brands circler counts exceeding 100,000. Nike, which joined just two months ago, is one of them. All told, the total number of circlers counted has grown 138% since Simply Measured’s first report three months ago, and circler engagement is up 112%. Engagement with content, which Simply Measured says is driven primarily by photos and videos, is up too, although not as much (65%). As one might expect, not all brands and verticals are treated equally on Google+. Four luxury brands — Ferrari, Gucci, H&M and Burberry — are tops in terms of the number of circlers they have. Combined, they have more than 2.5m circlers. In terms of verticals, brands in the automotive, electronics and luxury categories are by far the most popular.

According to Simply Measured CEO Adam Schoenfeld, “With a user base surpassing 100 million and growing fast, Google+ is becoming an attractive channel for brands to engage with consumers.” For brands like Ferrari and Gucci, that does appear to be the case. But there’s a wide chasm outside of the top-tiers of the Google+ brand page leaders. Armani, which ranks twenty-second in circlers with 111,000, is followed by Adidas, which has just 26,000 followers.

Read More at Econsultancy

Next Tuesday, May 15, a weekly series introducing “newbies” to the Facebook advertising platform will debut at 12:30 p.m. ET/9:30 a.m. PT.

Facebook said in announcing the webinars:

The goal of these series is to better arm businesses — those both new to Facebook and more experienced — with the latest tips and product information. These sessions will also take questions from viewers to address specific inquiries businesses may have.

The social network also offered a schedule for the Wednesday biweekly series:

• May 9: Overview of Facebook’s Four Steps to Business Success
• May 23: Step 1: Build Your Page
• June 7: Step 2: Connect with Fans with Ads
• June 20: Step 3: Engage your Fans with Quality Content
• July 5: Step 4: Influence the Friends of Your Fans

Read More at Allfacebook.com

Kinnitty Castle, Co.Offaly celebrate their 35th week at the top of the list, Well done!

Download the list as a PDF here!

(List correct as of 8^th May 2012)

The list is by no means final so if you feel we’ve missed you out, please let us know by commenting below and your hotel/group could appear on next weeks list.

The list is based on the number of fans the Facebook page has and is open to all hotels in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

This list only considers Facebook Pages as opposed to groups and personal profiles.

Facebook Pages:

1. Access to a Page, however, can only be restricted by certain ages and locations.
2. Page admins can send updates to fans through the Page, and these updates will appear in the “Updates” section of fans’ inboxes.
3. There is no limit on how many fans you may send an update to, or how many total fans a Page can have.
4. Pages can host applications, so a Page can essentially be more personalized and show more content.
5. Pages can benefit from social ads that publicize the fan connection between a Page and a specific user.
6. Pages are better for brands, businesses, bands, movies, or celebrities who want to interact with their fans or customers without having them connected to a personal account, and have a need to exceed Facebook’s 5,000 friend cap.

Neither Groups nor Pages have great moderation features. If someone posts spam on your Group or your Page, you have to remove it manually, and you can also remove specific members.

So it’s up to you who best suits your business right now and going forward.

Be sure to check back every Monday to see if your hotel has made the list!