Last Thursday, June 30 was Mashable’s second annual Social Media Day, a day to acknowledge and celebrate the revolution of media becoming social. Mashable organized more than 600 meet-ups all over the world to celebrate the event. Mashable used Twitter handle @mashSMday to provide real-time updates and developments on the celebration and encouraged people to upload photos to Flickr, post comments on Facebook, visit their SMday.com website and tweet using the #SMDay hashtag.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online comparing 2011 vs. 2010 chatter.

Social Media Day chatter

Overall chatter around Social Media Day increased in 2011. The number of mentions for Social Media Day and #SMDay were higher on June 30, 2011 vs. June 30, 2010.

Social Media Day sentiment

Conversations around Social Media Day were 95% positive. Mashable appeared in 13% of all Social Media Day mentions.

Content category distribution

More than 80% of overall chatter around Social Media Day came via Twitter.

Gender distribution

Approximately 65% of Social Media Day mentions were by men and 35% by women.

Mashable buzz

Overall Mashable’s second annual Social Media Day was a success from the standpoint of generating conversations online. The event also created buzz for Mashable, which generated its highest number of mentions of the year on June 30.

How did you celebrate Social Media Day?

With all the hype surrounding the Facebook land grab, Facebook buzz surged late June 12 and early June 13. At 9 p.m. PST on June 12, Facebook usernames opened to the public enabling users to choose a vanity URL for their profile page.

Vanity URLs encourage sharing and increased activity on Facebook. Mashable reported that 200,000 users registered usernames within the first 3 minutes, and more than 1,000,000 users registered within the first hour. Will vanity URLs affect your interaction on Facebook?

In today’s economic climate, marketers are trying to do more with less by making more efficient media buys. The most cost efficient, and often most trusted form of media is word of mouth. Senior Forrester Research Analyst Jeremiah Owyang called word of mouth the holy grail of marketing.

Organizations like hospitals rely heavily on word of mouth to remain top of mind for patients choosing a health care institution for their treatment. Lee Aase from the Mayo Clinic presented at the Community 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on how the Mayo Clinic is using social media to share their message with the existing community and extend the reputation built over many decades through word of mouth.

As millions of new users continue to join and use Twitter, retweets are quickly becoming the most effective way to socially endorse a brand or comment. A retweet is repeating someone else’s quote or tweet on Twitter. Owyang’s blog post called retweets the core essence of viral content spreading, as the content of a retweet was so valuable and important to that user that he or she was willing to share it with their network. And Forrester research indicates that Twitter users are brand sensitive.

Retweets are one way to make measuring and monitoring word of mouth more tangible and accurate. Repeets.com, a new site launched this week by our own Adam Coomes, tracks the hottest and most retweeted tweets of the day, week and month, providing a snapshot view of the most shared tweets. Mesiab Labs has launched www.retweet.com, an online petition users can sign to endorse retweets with the hope of creating enough support that Twitter will make an official Retweet button.

The chart below shows the steady rise of retweet or RT references online. Check out the spike from April to May 2009. How is your brand using and measuring retweets?