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Social networks: we’ve all heard of them, and most of us are at least familiar with the basic principles of all the major ones—Facebook is the biggest, YouTube is the place to watch videos, Flickr is for pictures, and Twitter is, well, Twitter. But enough about the basics! We’ve compiled a list of fun social media trivia that’s sure to make you the most popular guy or gal at your next party. Or help you answer a Final Jeopardy question. Or at least make you say “hmm.”

2,330,000,000 – Number of results Google returns for the search term “blog.” The top result is Blogger.com, a Google-owned blogging service.
4,920,093 – Number of people that follow @aplusk (aka: Ashton Kutcher), Twitter’s most popular user.
750,000 – Number of people who joined the group “Students against Facebook News Feed (Official Petition to Facebook)” when the news feed was introduced in 2005. Twitter, which was introduced in 2006, is a relatively close approximation and simplified version of the Facebook news feed. It currently boasts over 105,000,000 users.
50,237 – Number of times the most popular story on social news site Digg.com has been dugg. The story, entitled “Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0,” featured a string of code that could decrypt HD DVD format DRM. It was removed after Digg received a cease and desist notice.
11,091 – Number of results Flickr returns for the search term “platypus.”
2003 – Year Friendster, the site that defined social networking as we know it today, was launched. Friendster is still active today. Approximately 90% of its traffic comes from Asia and it continues to work on expanding its Asian presence.
1998 – Year LiveJournal, the granddaddy of all blogging platforms, was introduced.
130 – Average number of Friends a Facebook user has.
37 – Percentage of users who update Twitter using their mobile phones.
4:3 – Ratio of funny children videos to funny cat videos on YouTube. (Funny children may dominate YouTube, but the most dugg video of all time was, you guessed it, a cat video.)
0 – Number of followers many Twitter users had on May 10, 2010. After discovering a bug that allowed users to force other users to follow them without their consent, Twitter admins reset many account holders’ follower counts to zero while they resolved the issue.

On April 3, Apple released the newest member of its uber-popular family into the world, and technophiles were so jazzed that they snapped up over 600,000 iPads in five short days. But Apple-hungry consumers weren’t the only ones who were excited about the iPad—most* of the web’s biggest social players were pretty darned enthused as well, and they weren’t afraid to show it:

Google: To take full advantage of the large iPad screen, Google reformatted Gmail. The two-column display is basically an enhanced version of the single column Gmail for Mobile app that was created for the iPhone and Android. (Some Gmail users even argue that Gmail for the iPad is an enhanced version of traditional Gmail and are going to great lengths to make it their desktop default.)
Flickr: The photo and video sharing site gleefully announced on its blog that it would be making its videos iPad-compatible by introducing HTML5 playback. (Until very recently, nearly all websites embedded videos using Flash, but since the iPad doesn’t support Flash, sites are switching their vids over to HTML5 to keep up.)  
WordPress: WordPress also trumpeted its foray into iPad territory on its blog (a move that was actually quite apropos and vaguely existential). The blogging website has released a new version of its iPhone app that’s compatible with the iPad and comes equipped with all sorts of fun features like the ability to geotag blog updates.
YouTube: I found nary a peep about the iPad on the YouTube blog, but Apple was very vocal on the video giant’s behalf. The iPad comes with a built-in YouTube app, which, like big brother Gmail, is formatted to suit the iPad screen.
Facebook: Facebook has been making apps for Apple products since the beginning of time, so everyone was waiting to see what it had in store for the iPad. As it turns out, what it had in store was nothing. More accurately, a Facebook app was in the works for the iPad, but its life was cut short when its programmer took issue with the App Store screening process and quit the project. Some Tom, Dick, or Steve did create a Facebook app called Facebook Ultimate, but it developed a horrible reputation among iPad users (and infringed on the Facebook copyright to boot) and Apple has since removed it from the App Store. There is a bit of hope for the disgruntled Facebook user, and it comes in the form of http://touch.facebook.com/, which is a stripped down version of regular old Facebook that fits better on the iPad screen.
    
*Twitter is conspicuously absent from this list, and with good reason—the micro-blogging phenom didn’t go to any lengths to adapt itself to the iPad. Happily for tweet-o-holics, however, the App Store has been flooded with third-party Twitter apps (the ones from TweetDeck and Twitterific are said to be particularly excellent) that pick up the slack. 

If you’re one of the lucky few techies who’s already gotten his hands on an iPad, go ahead and tweet, blog, email, or update your Facebook status about how you’re tweeting, blogging, emailing, or updating your Facebook status with your all-powerful fingertips. Those of us old-fashioned mice-and-keyboard folks will be mighty jealous indeed.

So, you’ve joined some social media sites and you’ve cobbled together a pretty nice collection of followers. Now the question is, “What the heck are you gonna do with them?” You can’t spam them with self-promotion because they’ll leave. You can’t ignore them because you won’t see any return on your initial social media investments. What you can do—nay, what you should do, is talk to them. After all, the ability to interact with customers, to personalize your company, and to seem like an approachable expert forms the basis of social media’s appeal.

Not sure what to talk about? Not to fear--we’ve come up with six examples of ways you can engage with your social media audience. (For consistency’s sake, we’re assuming that “you” are a fictional florist called Brenda’s Blooms in our examples.)

• Call fans to action with your status updates. EX: When the weather’s nice, post an update to Twitter, Facebook, or your blog encouraging your followers to take pictures of flowers they find during the day and post them to your wall. You could also set up a Flickr Group where your followers could post flower pictures as often as they like. Be sure to comment on as many entries as possible and ask your followers to share the project with their friends so more people can contribute to your virtual bouquet.

• Ask fans questions and solicit their opinions. EX: Ask people which blooms they associate with the season. Come up with a few new arrangements for Valentine’s Day/Mother’s Day/birthdays and ask your followers to vote on their favorite design. Find out what everyone’s favorite scent is.

• Continue a conversation that someone else has started. EX: If one of your fans compliments the centerpieces that you designed for her friend’s wedding, thank her, mention an enjoyable exchange that you had with the bride, keep the conversation going by asking a question if you can (“Mrs. Bride said she was having trouble deciding on a honeymoon destination. Did she opt for Bermuda or Niagara Falls?”)

• Update about something unrelated to your business. EX: If you couldn’t live without your Keurig coffee pot, go ahead and tweet about it. Seriously! A few of your followers might feel the same way and suddenly you’ve made a connection on a whole different level. The general rule is that up to 20% of your updates can be more personal than professional.

• Start conversations with others in your industry. EX: Comment on well-known blogs and related YouTube videos, and then share them with your followers if you think they’d find the information useful. If you’re following Francine’s Flowers on Twitter and you like one of her tweets, respond with an @FrancinesFlowers tweet of your own.
   
• Seek out conversations using a social listening service like Technorati or Radian6. EX: Is “Brenda’s Blooms” or “boutonniere” a trending topic on Twitter or in the blogosphere? If so, you might want to add your two cents. Just make sure what you say is valuable (if girls are all a-Twitter about whether or not they should buy boutonnieres for their prom dates, your tweet could read, “Boutonnieres look very sharp when coordinated w/ tuxes and suits & are inexpensive when made with just 1 rose.”)
   

Remember that your followers are logged in to the networks because they want to interact, and they chose to follow you because they want to connect. Oblige them before they start collecting dust!