Social Media Pulse

Katherine Bonfante is senior digital editor for Control and ControlDesign. You can email her at [email protected] or check out her Google+ profile.If you're like me, whenever you have a few free minutes, you log in to your social media streams, be it, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, a blog or whatever else you use to catch up with life. I always say I'll spend just a few minutes there doing a quick read, but those few minutes turn into hours. Next thing I know, I've spent the majority of my morning, afternoon or night, scrolling through a never-ending news feed that keeps me entertained and informed.

I know ControlDesign.com is part of your news feed, and like me, you get drawn into our posts. If you are not following us, what are you waiting for?

SEE ALSO: Can Automation Users Solve Social Media?

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[sidebar id="3"]This month, I want to point out some of the most popular content you have checked out via our social spaces.

From our Facebook wall, you were most interested in our article "Get Your Machine to a More Efficient Place." Here, our Executive Editor Jim Montague says machine efficiency can come from many directions. It might mean using better drives, servo motors and robots. Even bigger gains might be possible by redesigning machines and operations to use fewer materials and produce more sustainable products. This is why true efficiency in the design and operation of your machines is about more than on/off and how many units are produced.

Featured on our LinkedIn page and Twitter feed was the article "How Automation Professionals Use the Web for Their Jobs." Many of you were interested in this piece written by our Associate Digital Editor Sarah Cechowski. The article talked about the annual audience study we have conducted for seven years now. The 2012 results showed that not very many of our respondents were changing their approaches to the way they research automation products and make purchases. However, there is one slowly accelerating change we see in the results year-to-year: the ways industry professionals use the web to help them do their jobs better.

The final most-read piece featured on our social media platforms is "Motion Simulation Software Boosts Profitability," by our Editor in Chief Joe Feeley. Feeley says that the stakes are high right now. Big manufacturing companies want to build mutually beneficial, long-lasting relationships with their key suppliers. Manufacturers on the other end, expect higher performance from their machines. "If they don't get what they expect, that business relationship will not last very long," say Feeley.

What else are you reading?