By Alyse Speyer – Web Success Team Contributor

Social media is about conversation and always has been. Here are twelve jaw-dropping statistics that may help you plan your next social media campaign.

• 2% reduction in negative word of mouth boosts sales growth by 1%. (London School of Economics)
• After 23 years, Pepsi dropped TV advertising for last year’s SuperBowl to spend $20 million on a social media campaign
• The average Twitter account has 300 followers (HubSpot)
• 74 percent of marketers who have been using social media for years, indicated that it helped them close business (2010 Social Media Marketing Report)
• There are more than 5 billion photos on Flickr (CNN)
• People spend over 700 billion minutes each month on Facebook (Facebook Statistics)
• 53% of the Fortune 500 have at least one active Twitter account.
• Wikipedia currently has over 17 million articles (Wikipedia)
• LinkedIn has 50 million professionals worldwide (LinkedIn)
• Twitter users send an average of 600 tweets per second (Twitter)
• 28% of U.S. online holiday shoppers are influenced by social media (Marketing Charts)
• 20% of tweets are invitations for product information, answers or responses from peers, or directly by brand representatives (PSU)

As you can see, today’s social media world has grown to new levels. Marketers should always plan ahead. Be sure to take the time to consider your business and marketing objectives before adopting a new social platform or launching a new campaign.

Alyse Speyer is an Content Strategist, Social Media Marketing Consultant, and a published poet. She has written on the topics of Online Marketing, Social Media, and Lead Generation for ClickZ, Visibility Magazine, and Women in Business Online Magazine. Alyse currently lives in San Francisco, CA.