Google steals the show for this week’s Social Media Recap! You can now send money via Gmail, as long as you have Google Wallet.
Google+ just got a fresh new look, watch out Pinterest. Google seems to also be in competition with iTunes because they just launched a music subscription service. But wait a minute, Bing had one big update this week, they added Facebook interaction to their search results.
Click play to learn more. What did you learn this week?
This week’s Social Media recap is all about new features on your favorite social networks. You can now manage one YouTube channel with multiple Google+ accounts.
Foursquare took their app to a whole new level by making search and discovery the #1 focus with their new design.
If you’ve been looking for a good reason to start using Facebook Ads you can start today because you now have many more targeting features with the new parent categories.
Do you want to make sure your friends see your new position on LinkedIn? Not a problem, you can now tag people & companies in your status updates.
Lastly, Facebook does care about their users, they now want to know if you’re happy or sad by having you share your emotions in your status updates.
What’s your favorite update this week?
This week’s Social Media Recap includes updates from all over the web. I’ve got 5 big updates for you to check out!
1. LinkedIn overhauled their search function for the first time in years.
2. Facebook rolls out replies to business pages, now you can reply directly to the person who commented on your post.
3. Yelp launched a Revenue Estimator tool for merchants to get a sense of how much money they are making from leads through Yelp.
4. Flipboard opens magazine creation and integrates with Etsy to become the next big eCommerce site.
5. Facebook started placing ads purchased through its ad exchange, FBX, in the newsfeeds of users.
What did you learn about this week?
Posted in Community Manager Tips, Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Media News
This week’s Social Media Recap is chock full of great stuff. First up is Twitter’s new campaign tools which target your ads based on Interests, Device Or Sex. In addition to the targeting options, Twitter has opened up its advanced campaign tools to all US advertisers.
Facebook wants you to personalize your profile so they’re making it easy. You can now change your cover photo on your iPhone.
Google+ says they know you want to capture images of your hangouts not just video so they’ve made the Hangouts Capture ap. With it you can take pictures of your Hangouts-in-progress, including a number of features not available in the usual screenshot workarounds. Google says it will soon be worldwide, and I normally only talk about things that launch during the week but it was too cool not to mention.
Pinterest acquired the Livestar team. Livestar is a recommendations mobile app. I think it would be awesome if you could receive recommendations when you were pinning on Pinterest. Really excited to see what they come up with.
But the highlight of the week goes to Twitter because they turned 7 this week. Twitter created a great video highlighting the biggest events since 2006 as they were told through tweets, check it out below!
Are you wondering how you’re going to read your favorite blogs everyday? The news hit me hard too but I’m here to provide a few alternatives, and for Engage121 clients it’s super easy!
There are many RSS readers out there, I myself loved Google’s tool since it was linked to all of my Google accounts but there’s no need to bite your nails. There are many readers you can switch to, such as Flipboard, Feedly, Pulse and don’t forget about Outlook. You can read more options on Social Media Today they list some of the best and how you can easily export your Google Reader data.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could read all of your favorite blogs in the same place where you monitor all of your social media networks, engage and publish content from your friends and influencers? In Engage121 you can do just that!
If you are an Engage121 client all you need to do is visit your Account tab. Once you are there, click on Contacts and then Blogs I Follow. You will see Add a Blog with a small + sign, simply click the icon, fill out the boxes, and Ta-Da your blog feeds are now in your Engage121 account. You can easily read your blog feeds by visiting your Listen tab, which is in the same place where you are already reading all of your social content. Yes, we make it easy!
What is your #1 RSS reader?
Posted in Community Manager Tips, Engage121 Clients, Social Media News
Tagged Google Reader, RSS, RSS readers
This week’s Social Media Recap is coming to you in text-only format because I can not get my webcam to work. Let’s get to it!
This week had the most “social media rumors” yet this year. I heard rumors about Facebook functionality, Twitter and more but since I only report on things that actually launch, we’ll leave those rumors for later.
Facebook acquired the storytelling social network called Storylane. The storylane team will be joining Facebook’s Timeline team. Perfect timing since Facebook recently announced Graph Search, as well as the new dseign for your newsfeed. My guess is that more design changes are coming from Facebook, stay tuned.
Pinterest wow’d business owners by showing that they actually care when they launched their Analytic Tool this week. If you have a verified account for your business on Pinterest you now have access to some really great data. You can see your most clicked pins, most re-pinned images and more. One step closer for Pinterest proving their value to businesses.
My highlight for the week is from LinkedIn, and their new SlideShare Content Ads. You can now created ads on LinkedIn that feature slides and promote your presentations. This is huge for B2B marketers, I know I can get my message acrossed more easily in a few slides than a 50×50 image in a LinkedIn ad.
What social media news caught your eye this week?
Today Facebook unveiled the new design of their newsfeed. I watched the Livestream from the Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, CA so I could hear it from Zuckerberg himself.
Today’s press event focused on three things:
1. Richer stories
2. Different cuts of your feed
3. Consistency, same material experience on all the different platforms we’re on
The images they showed were jaw-dropping. The new redesign is taking photos and putting them front and center, more visual, more beautiful.
How we’re all sharing is changing and the design of your newsfeed needs to reflect this evolving space. Your choice of different feeds, dig into any topic you want. A mobile inspired consistent UI, the same Facebook experience across all your mobile devices & desktop. -Mark Zuckerberg
Richer Stories:
Facebook is bringing elements of your timeline into the story. Right away you get a bigger profile picture, you can see if you have friends in common, and if you know the person, it’s easy to add them as a friend.
This works really well for brands and pages. Not only are profile pictures bigger for users, but they are also bigger for business pages, as well as cover photos. Additionally, these images will now be front and center in the newsfeed. If you are advertising your business on Facebook you need to make sure you are branding your business page, and it is visually appealing to your followers.
A lot of sharing on Facebook comes from 3rd party apps, like Pinterest for example. These images will now have more prominence in your newsfeed, and what you see on Facebook will now reflect how you see it on Pinterest. This will apply to ALL 3rd party applications.
One great example of the new design is when you have multiple friends sharing the same article or video (above). The video will now be very large and instantly playable in the newsfeed. On the left hand side of the video preview, you will see faces of all your friends who shared it. If you hover over their faces you can see what they said about the video when they shared it.
Different cuts of your feed:
Today, the newsfeed today shows what my friends like, post, etc. but sometimes I want to see every event my friends are going to, or every photo they’re uploading. You now have more control over what you want to see by clicking the switcher in the top right, if on your desktop, or by pulling down if on a mobile device, to access the all friends feed. You also have a following feed where you can see every post from the pages and public figures you like. There will now be 7 newsfeed options; all friends, most recent, close friends, music, photos, games and following.
Consistency:
Facebook’s mission for a consistent user experience across all devices was summed up as “getting facebook out of the way as much as possible.” There is now a truly global navigation, you can go from page to page in Facebook without having to visit the homepage first.
Facebook will begin rolling out the new design on the web today, the phone and tablet will follow in the next few weeks. You can join the waiting list now and read Facebook’s official announcement.
Now for my takeaways:
1. User experience: the new design should help increase user activity due to the mirrored experience across all devices, desktop and mobile. The average user spends 7 months on Facebook each month, that may now increase to 9 hours.
2. Brands needs to be on their A-game: no more posting lo-res photos, or only posting once a week. If you want to compete with your competitors online then you’re going to have to step it up a notch.
3. There’s no more EdgeRank: Yeah for brands, this is great news! Wait a minute, all of a brand’s posts will be seen, but in order for them to be seen, a user needs to click on the following feed. I don’t know about you but I never click on the pages feed now. This adaption will be interesting to watch.
4. Ads are here to stay: Not only can you still promote your page and posts but ads are also getting some design changes. My prediction is that Facebook Ads will now be a required addition to your marketing strategy.
I would love to hear your thoughts, do you think this will make Facebook better or worse?
Thanks to Mashable and Mari Smith for sharing their information.
This week’s Social Media Recap is focused on Facebook’s new timeline design that just rolled out in New Zealand. You can take a look at the new design by visiting Mashable.
Facebook recently purchased the Atlas Ad Business from Microsoft. What does that mean? Get ready to start seeing Facebook ads across the web sometime this year.
Today is National Unplugging Day, you can read more about this day of rest here. When was the last time you unplugged?
Make sure you check out two new applications that I was pointed to by Deb Evans:
9slides.com & Sees.aw.
Did I forget anything?
Posted in Community Manager Tips, Facebook, Social Media News
This week I’m bringing your Social Media Recap to you straight from Winter Storm Nemo, blizzard and all!
Did you hear that you can now see your full Instagram feed on the web? Visit Instagram.com, login and you can see photos from all your friends, and comment on your favorites. You can not however upload photos from the web, you still need your smartphone for that.
People Melt is challenging Foursquare to a dual. PeopleMelt.com helps you navigate the unfamiliar city you are currently in. People Melt uses your location to show you what is trending in your area. You can see Tweets, deal and offers that are nearby. No more sitting in your hotel room when you’re traveling for business.
What did you discover this week?
This week Facebook doesn’t steal the show. Twitter launches their new video-sharing tool and 24 hours later it has privacy issues. Wow, that didn’t take long.
Facebook’s conversion tool went live for all advertisers this week. You can now add HTML code to a landing page on your website to determine whether a visitor bought your T-shirt from a Facebook Ad or not.
What was the biggest update for you this week in the world of Social Media?
