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By Marge Axelrad: Editorial Director

NEW YORK—Four hundred million Facebook users. An estimated 18 million Twitter users. Plus “recommenders” spiraling conversations, and mixing business and social priorities via Digg, Yelp, LinkedIn, Flickr and hosts of other sites. And these are multiplied further by news, entertainment, cultural and business Web sites integrating their messages.

The term “word of mouth” is now geometrically-expanded and redefined each day via the Internet. And the optical and vision communities—consumers, patients and participants within the professional and business sectors—are diving in.

Vision Monday is starting to track participation and our initial research makes it hard to pinpoint numbers as they change on an hourly basis. But suffice it to say that literally thousands of optical retailers, boutiques, eyecare professionals, big chains, smaller offices, supplier companies, brands and millions of consumers are now participating in the social media revolution.

Pew Internet & Life American Project (www.Pewinternet.org/Infographics), the non-profit organization that monitors technology trends and their implications, reports that 79 percent of American adults used the Internet in 2009, up from 67 percent in Feb. 2005. Forty-six percent of online American adults 18 and older use a social networking site like MySpace (www.myspace.com), Facebook (www.facebook.com) or LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), up from 8 percent in February 2005.

A majority of U.S. adults now also look online for health information and most are accessing reviews and comments posted by fellow consumers. According to a June Pew and California HealthCare Foundation report (www.pewinternet.org/Press-Releases/2009/The-Social-Life-of-Health-Information.aspx) 61 percent of adults look online for health information.

As the activity heats up, there are eyecare practices such as Eye Care Oklahoma (www.facebook.com/eyecareok) who are cultivating hundreds of fans with special drawings, like the one they did in the fall for a pair of Ed Hardy sunglasses. Or, there are retailers like Ed Beiner Purveyor of Fine Eyewear (www.facebook.com) who are strengthening and making new connections with eyewear fans, citing their own exclusive collection arrivals as well as building “conversation” with referrals to great articles or commentary online from others.

Here, we spotlight just a tiny proportion of companies who are today innovating new ways to leverage social media to build brands, develop loyalty and awareness, solve problems and create excitement directly with consumers or customers. ■ ■
 
—maxelrad@jobson.com