The British have really jumped on board with social media with as many as 55% of over-65s now having a Facebook profile, a new study suggests.

The survey, issued by social media agency Umpf, showed how endemic social media use has become.

“Social media is clearly no longer the preserve of the tech-savvy under 30s”, Jon Priestley from Umpf said.

“The social media landscape is changing rapidly and gender divides are starting to become apparent.”

Men prefer to be LinkedIn

Over three-quarters (77%) of UK adults have an active Facebook profile, with nearly one-third (32%) also using Twitter regularly.

Men and women were found to favour different platforms, with nearly twice as many men than women having an active LinkedIn account. Of those with a profile, 28 per cent of men checked theirs at least once a day, compared with just 14% of women.

Facebook was used by 80 per cent of women, but a significantly lower 72% of men.

Divides emerged based on age as well, with nearly all (95%) of 18 – 25s having an active Facebook profile, with this figure dropping significantly to 55% of over 65s.

Whilst social media usage was distinctly lower amongst those of pensionable age, more than half actively used Facebook and more than two-thirds were regularly using and viewing YouTube.

Top users in the South West

The study also shows how geography is playing a key role in the social media adoption with distinct geographical areas beginning to favour different social media platforms.

Click on the infographic to see it bigger.

The South West counted the highest percentages of Facebook and Twitter usage across the UK while Northern Ireland had the lowest average usage of social media platforms.

Just 6% Northern Irish residents had an active Linkedin profile, contrasting with one in five in the South East.

However, Northern Ireland saw the highest percentages of those using YouTube, with three quarters of all those surveyed frequently using the video sharing site, as opposed to just 59% in the South West.

The survey was conducted by polling agency Your Say Pays amongst 2,387 UK adults in July.

For more information and for full survey results, visit www.umpf.co.uk.

‘Tweet Pie: The World’s Shortest Recipe Book’ crowdsourced more than 200 ‘twecipes’ via Twitter since it was launched in March this year. A total of 50  have been published in the book.

All proceeds from the Tweet Pie project – organised by British cooker manufacturer Belling – are being donated to the food charity FoodCycle.

The recipe book was inspired by Belling research published earlier this year which showed Delia Smith to be Britain’s wordiest chef.

Kelvin Cheung, Chief Executive at FoodCycle, thanked Belling for coming up with the idea.

“We’re so excited to be able to sell such a unique recipe book for FoodCycle”, he said.

“We’d like to thank Belling for choosing our charity to collaborate with and we’re looking forward to selling a host of the books via our Ebay shop and raising money to combat food poverty.”

The book, priced at £4.99, is available to buy online via FoodCycle UK’s Ebay shop: bit.ly/TweetPie.

The latest addition is a website called TuneBirds which allows users to share playlists via Twitter.

Other sites have offered this feature – notably 8Tracks and Instant.fm – but on those sites you have to upload the sounds from your computer yourself.

On TuneBirds, all you need to do is search for the songs and add them to your playlist.

The site allows you to upload individual songs or entire playlists.

Simply by clicking a button, a tweet will be automatically created for you sharing the playlist but you can change the text as you wish before it’s published on Twitter.

One of the region’s top printing companies has launched its new website and is going big on social media.

Potts Print (UK) has given the site a complete overhaul including a new design and live feeds from Facebook, Twitter and a blog.

Among the new content is an extensive section on the history of the company and a complete list of contacts for all divisions in the printing, packaging and direct mail services.

The company has been active on a range of social media platforms in the past year, establishing itself on Twitter and attracting 200 followers.

To mark the launch of the new site, the company are giving away a social media marketing guide via its Facebook page.

People can access the guide, containing tips on marketing through social media, by simply liking the page at:

http://www.facebook.com/pottsprintuk.

The new website is up and running now at: http://www.potts.co.uk/

However, the match itself has entered the record books after Twitter users eclipsed the record for the highest number of tweets-per-second (TPS).

During the match, the number of tweets rose to a staggering 7,196 TPS, way clear of the previous record of 6,939 TPS set on New Year’s Day 2011 in Japan.

On the very same day, the new record was under threat by the Copa America quarterfinal game between Paraguay and Brazil. At its highest point, the rate of tweets per second was running at just 30 fewer than in the women’s game (7,166).

To put that into perspective, Osama bin Laden’s death prompted 5,100 TPS and Superbowl XLV reached 4,096 TPS.

Meanwhile, the number of blue chip companies using Twitter continues to grow quickly.

A survey by The Group, which monitors how businesses use social media found that by the end of June, 56% of FTSE 100 companies had a Twitter account compared with 40% at the end of December.

‘Competwition’ was the brainchild of Leeds-based digital agency Branded3, the company behind ‘Twitition’, one of the web’s fastest-growing petition sites.

For brands, and agencies who run Twitter campaigns on their client’s behalf, key to Competwition is a viral element which rapidly increases a brand’s followers, enhancing their social media profile.

Branded3’s Director of Search, Patrick Altoft, said the app would be a great social media tool “for brands and consumers alike”.

“It allows businesses, or marketing agencies working for brands, to quickly build Twitter followers, strengthen their social media profile, enhance their relationship with existing customers and engages with audiences they may not have otherwise been able to reach,” he said.

“For us at Branded3 it is a natural product extension following the global success of Twitition, at the same time showcasing our social media expertise.”

Brands looking to run competitions on Twitter can use Competwition for free. To find out more, visit www.competwition.com/create

The Santa Monica based agency was sacked by its biggest client, 2k, after tweeting about blacklisting bad reviewers of the game ‘Duke Nukem Forever’.

The game hasn’t had the best possible reception, prompting a self-destructive tweet from the PR company.

“#AlwaysBetOnDuke too many went too far with their reviews…we r reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom.”

The video game publisher didn’t appreciate the threatening approach.

“2K Games does not endorse the comments made by Jim Redner and we can confirm that The Redner Group no longer represents our products”, a company statement read.

“We have always maintained a mutually-respectful working relationship with the press and do not condone his actions in any way.”

Jim Redner has commented the stunt by saying he overreacted.

“I believe reviews are completely subjective. Everyone is welcome to their own opinion and opinions are never wrong.”

“It is not my intention to bully anyone. I over reacted. I just voiced an opinion. I have poured my heart into this project and I just want it to succeed.”

The awards, which took place in New York on 28 March, have been hailed as the “Oscars of Twitter” by The New York Times.

Now on its third year, the Shorty Awards were set up to honour the best use of Twitter and social media to communicate with customers across the world.

The proud Tyneside winners were up against a tough crowd beating the likes of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Smithsonian, and the Tate Galleries. The win was shared with The Science Gallery, Dublin.

You can watch a recording of the award ceremony here.

And follow the award-winning Twitter feed here.

Congratulations Tyneside Cinema!

‘Tweet Pie’ is crowdsourcing 140-character recipes – ’twecipes’ – to include in a book to be published later this year.

To enter, Tweet a recipe including the hashtag #Tweetpie. The best entries will be featured in the book.

Craig Dugas from @tinyrecipes, who will be one of the judges deciding which recipes make the book, described Twecipes as ‘tiny cookery adventures’.

“An entire dish can be created by someone that may have never tried it before, all from a recipe that’s about the length of one sentence”, he said.

The campaign was created by Leeds-based PR & social media agency Umpf for UK cooker manufacturer Belling.

Tweet Pie will be published and sold in aid of FoodCycle, a charity that redirects edible surplus food thrown away by food retailers to create nutritious meals for people affected by food poverty.

The campaign was inspired by the wordiness of the UK’s celebrity chefs. According to an analysis of the UK’s top ten bestselling celebrity cook books, Delia Smith is almost three times wordier than her counterparts.

Delia makes a real meal out of a simple roast beef dish, using 872 words, second wordiest was Nigella Lawson (787) and third Jamie Oliver (773). Cooking legend Mrs Beeton came out best, using just 156 words to explain the perfect roast.

Twecipes for Roast Beef, Spaghetti Bolognese and Risotto:

1. Rst bf – Rb beefw/ salt,ppr&olvoil. Sear in r/tray on hob, tfr 2 oven 240° 4 20min, rdce heat 2 190°, 30min pr k 4 rare, rest, crv #Tweetpie

2. Spag Bol – Fry garl, onion, brwn mince+thyme, gls rd wine, tin toms, msrooms, sson, simr 40 min. Boil pasta 10 mins. Srv w/parmsn #Tweetpie

3. Risotto–Sftn onino, garl & celry in olvoil+rice, tn up heat+splsh wine, stir,+stock, stir, rpt till cooked+butter & parmsn, srv #Tweetpie

Charlie Sheen: Crackers

Infamous bad boy Charlie Sheen has sparked controversy this week by publicly admitting “I’m addicted to acting.”

In the wake of this revelation Sheen’s Twitter account, which he opened on February 28th has broken all records for the fastest growing profile in the history of the website, earning the superstar thousands of dollars for sponsored tweets.

Though it has been Hollywood’s best kept secret for many years, Sheen has finally admitted that he likes to stand in front of cameras and pretend to be someone else, for money. His popularity on Twitter looks set to continue while Sheen, who has also admitted to having “Tiger blood” coursing through his veins, seeks private help for his thespian habit.

A Hollywood insider commented, “It’s amazing – before we used to think that Sheen’s only use was putting illegal white power up his nose, partying for 96 hours without sleep and scaring hookers, but now it seems he has other strings to his bow: acting is one of them, and composing pithy comments about his own brilliance and how he is ‘winning’ at life in 140 characters or less.”

Sheen was unavailable for comment.

Reporter: Stanley Knife