5 Tips for Creating a LinkedIn Profile Which Truly Represents You

The new Profile Summary page changes, LinkedIn recently released, are changes which affect everyone with a page on their site. These changes affect not only the way your profile page looks, but affect your pages ability to attract people searching for your unique expertise and/or background.
In order to get the most from the free marketing LinkedIn allows, it needs more than the usual resume-style flat, boring rundown of experience. No more 'just the facts'. Now you must craft a unique Summary which not only states the facts, but keeps readers interested. Eager to call and discuss hiring you once they've read it.

The word LinkedIn uses for the profile area is "Summary". And that's exactly what you must craft.

What is a good Profile Summary?
Bottom line - It's a well thought out, and written, synopsis of your background and expertise. It touches on salient points. Presents valuable experience potential clients or employers will see the minute they begin reading the Summary.

Your newly crafted background outline quickly gives potential clients, or employers, a comprehensive view of your work experience, without requiring them to waste time wading through tons of unnecessary data.
It should leave out information which no longer pertains to your current niche or area of work. But can be provided if necessary.

These new LinkedIn changes mean developing a robust summary for your profile page. One not just filled with boring facts. But one which clearly, and interestingly, describes who you are and what you currently do. One which utilizes appropriate keywords. And one which is effectively search engine optimized.
Not only that, it's one which is keyword and search engine optimized one is memorable. And helps you stand out from the crowd.

5 Tips for Organizing a New or Updated LinkedIn Profile Summary:
1. Find appropriate keywords. Words which not only best describe you and your expertise, but are words people search for when planning to hire someone with your experience. Add some of these to your Profile Summary. This is called search engine optimization and is now more important than with old style Profile Summary pages. However, don't over use keywords. This is tops on Google's hit list of no-nos.

2. Create a full and energetic Profile Summary. LinkedIn allows you a specific number of words for your Profile Summary. So craft yours on your computer first. This allows you to organize, and state, the most important facts and info.

3. Make your history and facts interesting. While your Profile Summary should be factual, it should be readable for the average educated person. Neither a fairy tale nor an intellectual treatise.

4. Leave out old info which has no bearing on current work.

5. Do not embellish current facts so they've become over-the-top or unbelievable. Nor create unverifiable facts.

Your new Profile Summary should now have your background information, and expertise, thoughtfully woven together. Written in a way which keeps visitors and potential employers engaged and reading.
Think about it. These newly launched LinkedIn changes are not only providing you a better opportunity to showcase your experience, and expertise, but to present it in a more engaging and visible way.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7424259

Facebook Gifts Now Available To U.S. Users

Facebook Gifts have been rolled out to all users in the United States after they had spent time in beta.

Conveniently released in time for the holidays, users in America are able to send physical gifts to Facebook friends for Christmas, birthdays, or any other holiday or special occasion.
Despite the fact that the person on the receiving end of the gift will know in advance what is being sent to them, the sender has a large list of options to choose from. These could be gourmet food, novelty gifts and household goods amongst other items.

A step by step guide below explains the gift process should users in the U.S. choose to send a Facebook friend something via the social platform:

1. Gifts can be accessed in different ways. The gift option now exists next to the post and photo buttons on a friend’s timeline. The gift button will also appear in the birthday notifications section in the top right corner of the screen. Also, you can access the gifts page simply by typing ‘Gifts’ into the search bar (from this option you will be greeted with a box asking who you wish to send a gift to).

2. On the left hand screen users will find a dropdown menu where you can select different categories of gifts that you want to send. The gifts are actual physical items and there are plenty to choose from. Categories include; home, kitchen, gadgets, pet supplies, and even digital items such as Facebook or iTunes credit.



3. Selecting a gift then takes you to an enlarged picture of the item and more information concerning the item. Some gifts may even come with the ability to leave a personalised message which Facebook allows you to fill in.

4. Review your order and confirm the credit card that you are using to pay for the item.

5. Facebook takes care of the rest and notifies you when the recipient has accepted the gift and entered their address.

6. When receiving a gift, you will get a notification saying that somebody has sent you a gift and you will be asked if you want to open the gift.

7. By accepting the present, the recipient will be shown what the gift is along with everything the sender has seen apart from the price.

8. Enter the shipping address for where you wish the gift to be sent. The person sending the item will never get to see this address.

9. The recipient will be able to send a thank you message which will appear in the sender’s private inbox on Facebook.

10. Once accepted, the present will then appear on your Facebook Timeline. However, the ability to hide this is also available.
 
Do you think you will be using Facebook Gifts?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below

Businesses Can Now Post Events On Foursquare

In August last year, the events option was introduced to a few select venues, such as sporting arenas and concert halls. Any business on Foursquare now has the option of creating their own custom event.

Businesses can post information about upcoming events on their Foursquare profiles. The event information will appear when a user searches for locations nearby, checks in, or goes back over previous check-ins.

For example, a book shop can advertise an upcoming book signing by a famous author, a pub can advertise a beer festival and retailers could advertise a sale.
Posting an event is simple, just add an event name, date and time to your business’ profile. The Foursquare blog says that the new events option will help users “record their experiences and remember what a great time they had”.

The benefits for business owners and managers are evident: the events will increase publicity, drawing in more customers, and the check-in feature will allow businesses to monitor how successful events are.
The fact that businesses will be able to monitor exactly how successful their event is using Foursquare means that the site could monetize the system in the near future.

Currently, Foursquare’s search engine is not intuitive enough to recommend events, as it does places, but it is highly likely that it will in the near future.

What do you think of Foursquare’s events?

Five Steps To A Better Facebook Business Page

Ah, the frustration. Nine hundred million Facebook users and only a hand full are fans of your business. Worse still, no is actively following your page or sending business your way. You decide, like many, that Facebook is probably not an avenue to increase business or sales. Before you delete your page or let it die a slow death through neglect, here are some pro-active steps that can give your page, and your business a boost.

Step 1. Learn the competition. Take a look at your competitor's page and see what they're doing right, and doing wrong. You can find the page by going to Facebook's search engine and typing in your customer's page. If you can't find it that way, Facebook search is still not up to grade in some respects,,try going to your competitor's website. They may have a link or a "like" widget that will navigate you to their page. Once on the page, Facebook, not the website, take a look around. You want to look for how the Cover photo and Profile photo compliment each other. Do they make sense? Do they enhance the brand? How often does this page post? What seems to be working for them? What kind of content are they posting? Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Flatter your competitor.

Step 2. Learn some of the best practices. There are no hard and fast rules to social marketing, but there are some strategies that work better than others. Here are a few:

· Don't sell, engage. Most companies that complain about Facebook as a business platform do so because their sales campaigns don't deliver results. If all they're trying to do is sell, they have a long wait. Successful brands that have thrived on Facebook don't sell to their fans, they engage them. You can engage them by offering advice on products and services you offer; doing surveys; asking fill-in-the-blank-type questions. Asking fans to name a Facebook friend who uses your product or service is a great way to engage a current fan and maybe find a new one.

· Post every day. It may seem to be unnecessary but not all of your fans see every post. If you only post once or twice a week, it may be quite some time before a fan sees a post from you.
· Include a call to action. It could be to click into your website, answer a question, or participate in a survey. Anything that encourages a fan to interact with your page is worthwhile.
· If you do sell, don't over do it. One sales related post out of five is plenty. Beyond that and you're probably disengaging your audience.

Step 3. Add to your page. Replace your cover photo and profile picture on a regular basis. Create a video to introduce yourself. Build a gallery of images that reflects your work or your product. Add a contact or email form. You can highlight a product or service.

Step 4. Plan. Don't go about posting willy-nilly. Have a plan for what you are going to post and when. Plan for the short term and longer. The shorter calendar, typically a week or a month, highlights everyday events and news. The longer view highlights sales promotion, large events and the like.

Step 5. Consider a paid ad campaign on Facebook. Facebook lets you build a page for free, accumulate fans for free, and create a brand presence for free. What they won't allow you to do anymore is communicate with all your fans for free. Facebook is in the money making business and have realized that they can't give away the store and make money. So to reach all of your fans, you'll have to spend some cash.

At first glance, the Facebook platform appears similar to Google's AdWords. But there are differences. Keywords are not important in Facebook, interests and demographics are. You can micro target an audience to certain categories such as age or interest. Images play a key role in the Facebook model so be sure to upload one. You can promote a post to get it a wider audience. Promoted posts will allow you to broadcast outside your network of fans. The cost for a Facebook ad won't bust your budget. Facebook is an effective advertising tool when page owners realize it's not free and sales results will be generated over time.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7408249

U.S. Social Media Ad Revenues To Double By 2016

BIA/Kelsey, a leading media analysis and consultancy firm, forecasts that social media advertising revenue in the U.S. will grow from $4.6 billion to $9.2 billion in the next four years – that equates to a compound annual growth rate of 19.2%.

“The continued development of native ads, such as Facebook’s Sponsored Stories and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, and the acceleration of mobile monetization will be the primary drivers of social advertising growth through 2016”, said Jed Williams of BIA/Kelsey, adding that 2012 was the year of social advertising’s “coming of age”.

According to Dan Greenberg, CEO of Sharethrough, ‘native advertising’ is “a form of media that’s built into the actual visual design and where the ads are part of the content.” The revenue from ‘native advertising’ is predicted to grow from $1.5 billion to $3.9 billion by 2016.

There will also be an increase in the revenue from other forms of social media advertising: the revenue from social display advertising, such as the banners on YouTube, will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 15.2% from $3 billion to $5.4 billion.

Mobile advertising is expected to increase 300% over the next four years, from $500 million to 1.5 billion. Jed Williams admits that they are “clearly placing a bet that mobile ads will perform. Obviously, mobile ad economies are not very good, but as demand goes up, hopefully the prices will go up.”

Are you surprised by BIA/Kelsey’s findings?

Twitter’s New API Rules Kill Windows 8 App

What happens when third-party Twitter developers hit the API limit for user tokens? The results aren’t pretty.

When Twitter announced its big API changes back in August, one of the most controversial changes was the decision to cap applications that “replicate the core Twitter experience” to 100,000 user tokens (Twitter accounts that can access the app).

Twitter clients that had built up large user bases before the API changes went into effect — such as Twitterrific and Osfoora — were allowed to double in size before Twitter said it would pull the plug.
The same cannot be said for Twitter clients that saw sizable audiences after the new rules were implemented. Enter Tweetro, a Twitter client for Windows 8 that wanted to offer users the best Twitter experience that follows along with the Windows 8 design guidelines.


Tweetro was a free app and quickly became one of the most popular downloads in the Windows Store. Until Twitter brings its official Windows 8 app to the market, Tweetro was one of the best alternatives for Windows 8 users looking for their Twitter fix.

Unfortunately for Tweetro, the app was a victim of its own popularity — skyrocketing past 100,000 user tokens in the days after Windows 8′s release. At a certain point, Twitter pulled the plug on offering access to the app and users were unable to login via OAuth.

As a result, Lazyworm Applications was forced to pull Tweetro from the Windows Store because the company was unable to service its users. Developers were holding onto hope that they would be able to work something out with Twitter and applied for a token exemption.
Today, Tweetro heard back from Twitter. The news isn’t good. As Windows Observer reports, Twitter’s not budging. Tweetro will not get an increase in user tokens.
The statement Twitter sent to Lazyworm Applications said in part:

“Unfortunately, It does not appear that your service addresses an area that our current or future products do not already serve. As such, it does not qualify for an exemption.”

In other words, because Twitter has a Windows 8 client in the works, it doesn’t see the need to allow a third party to continue to use its API.
As a result, Lazyworm says its going to do what Tapbots has done with Tweetbot for Mac — charge for the app in an effort to reduce the number of user tokens. In Tapbots’s case, the company is charging $20 for Tweetbot for Mac in order to sustain the cost of development (and likely depress what would otherwise surely be sales that would quickly exceed the company’s token limits).

We’re Just Getting Started

The situation that Tweetro faces is particularly disconcerting because Twitter doesn’t have an official client on the market at this time. The alternative is for users to use less popular apps or the Twitter website. The Twitter website, as it exists today, doesn’t work particularly well with Windows 8 or Windows RT on a touch screen, making a good client app more necessary.

While Tweetro is the first app to hit Twitter’s token limits, it won’t be the last. If Twitter continues to stick to its guns on this issue (and we think the company will), it’s only a matter of time before apps that have built up audiences and users over longer periods of time hit the limit too.
To be fair, Twitter stopped encouraging developers to build Twitter clients back in March 2011, so they can’t pretend to be totally caught off guard.

Still, the move to limiting API tokens is a big shift for a company that owes much of its early success to third-party developers (and Twitter client developers at that).
Twitter’s position is that it needs to control the way tweets are displayed — as well as how promoted tweets, promoted trends and other sponsored tweets are integrated across platforms. It’s difficult to do this with third-party apps.

For now, its a nascent set of users and developers that feel the rub. It will be more telling to see what the Twitter community does when — not if — a larger third-party client succumbs to the new API rules.

Science Inc. Launch Analytics Tool to Measure Marketing Success on Pinterest

Tech incubator, Science Inc. have funded a start-up service which can be used to measure the success of marketing campaigns on Pinterest.
‘HelloInsights’ is an analytics platform which will target the brands who wish to run a marketing campaign on the social media site as well as maintaining the core essence of Pinterest.
The analytics tool was originally started as a means to interpret their own portfolio, but eventually expanded, providing the service to other companies.


HelloInsights allows users to review their overall influence managing campaigns on Pinterest with the use of their measurement and monitoring tools.
A streamlined and lightweight version has been released out to companies at no cost to assist them in thinking more strategically when it comes to their marketing methods on Pinterest.
As there is currently no obvious way to measure any data on the social network site, the analytics tool is being targeted by retailers and other businesses as a way to optimize and measure their campaign’s success.



HelloInsights shows its users comparison charts, Twitter streams, information of the biggest pinner, a seamless integration with Google Analytics as well as other data.
Up till now, only a few companies have taken advantage of the analytics and since February the company has tracked over 1 million user acquisitions, 8 million page views, and tons of revenue for companies.
Although there are plans to charge for the service soon through deeper campaign integration consulting, it is currently free for everyone to use and gives users the chance to schedule pins to their account whilst also reviewing customised charts. These can then be compared to competitors by combining the analytics.
250 companies are currently using the service ranging from small, individually-owned companies up to Fortune 500 organisations.

HelloInsights say that they are opening up their service to start getting people involved, little bits at a time.

What do you make of this new analytic tool? Will you be taking advantage of it?

TweetDeck Update Adds Keyboard Shortcuts and More

TweetDeck for web, Chrome and PC was updated Wednesday to version 2.1, bringing with it a number of new features.

Feature additions in the updated TweetDeck include support for expanded tweets, the introduction of keyboard shortcuts, and the ability to edit your search columns.
Lists can now be quickly opened by typing the name of the list into the search box. If you want to check out a list you’re not subscribed to that belongs to another user, you can do that by typing in @username/listname into the search box. Both actions will bring the list you’re looking for into the list window, allowing you to view recent tweets as well as add a new column.

Search columns can now be edited as you add new columns, eliminating the need to continue to add new search columns as you refine your search. A single search column can be edited as much as you’d like and your changes are instantly reflected in the results.

TweetDeck also now offers full support for expanded tweets, allowing you to view photo and player cards in the tweet details view for more than 2,000 websites.

Keyboard shortcuts are also introduced in the release. Now you can press “n” to open a window to compose a tweet, “Ctrl+Enter” to send the tweet, and “Esc” to close the compose window as well as any other pop-up windows. More keyboard shortcuts are reportedly on the way.

Will the changes be useful to you? Let us know what you think about the updated TweetDeck in the comments.

Instagram Introduces New Web Profile

Instagram is to launch a web profile to co-exist with its iPhone app, two years after its original launch.
The photo sharing program are launching their web profiles as a simple way to share your photos with more people and to make finding new followers easier.

The website is gradually being made accessible to users with a notably striking resemblance to the Facebook Timeline. Where a cover photo would be on your Facebook Profile, this space is covered with a mosaic of constantly rotating photos. A small profile photo, bio and follower stats are situated just beneath.



Your photos will appear in thumbnails further down the page in reverse chronological order. Once clicked on, they will become full sized alongside their likes and comments.
The obvious resemblance to Facebook doesn’t come as such a surprise however as Instagram was acquired by Facebook in September for a mere $715 million.

Facebook insist that Instagram will keep running as a separate service however with the pages not linking to Facebook and users not being asked to log in via their Facebook account. The likeness however does suggest a more meaningful link in the future between the two social media platforms.
Users will not be able to upload photos from the web at the current time, possibly due to a similarity to Pinterest, but the inevitable step into having a presence on the web seems the best form of expansion for the program.

The new profiles will become available to all users in the next week or so with most users being able to see theirs in the next few days.
To see if your profile is accessible yet, navigate to instagram.com/[username]. In order to find Nike’s profile, @nike, you would type in instagram.com/nike.

Do you think this is a smart move for Instagram?
What do you think of its likeness to Facebook?

Mobile Advertising Boosts Facebook’s Revenue

Facebook’s third-quarter earnings, which were released last Wednesday, show a marked increase in advertising revenue, especially on mobile devices.



Despite concerns over Facebook’s advertising model, their third-quarter earnings have increased 36% from last year to $1.08 billion, $139 million of which was raised by mobile advertising.
“Our opportunity on mobile is the most misunderstood aspect of Facebook today,” creator and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “most people underestimate how fundamentally good the trend toward mobile can be for Facebook.”
The first mobile Facebook adverts were made available six months ago, and in June advertisers on Facebook were able to buy specific adverts.
There are currently four variants of advertising on Facebook mobile:

• Sponsored Stories, which recommend brand pages based on a friend’s activity
• Promoted Posts, which highlight pages that friends have liked in the News Feed
• Mobile Ads For Apps, which promote applications
• Offers, which display promotions in the News Feed.

Companies can also decide where their adverts are displayed on Facebook: over all of Facebook, just in the News Feeds on desktop devices, just on desktop devices, on both mobile and desktop News Feeds or just in the News Feeds on mobile devices.


In a recent study, Nanigans, a company which buys advertising space on Facebook, worked out that Sponsored Stories on mobile are 45% cheaper than on desktop. Lower prices means a higher ROI, which is somewhat thanks to the novelty of mobile advertising.
Other studies have already shown that mobile advertising is the most efficient variant of social media marketing, with Facebook mobile adverts displaying the highest CTR of 1.037%, and the second highest CVR of 65.76%.

With 604 million of the billion or so Facebook users already mobile, Facebook, and other internet giants such as Google, are looking to take advantage of a lucrative and growing market. Many believe that Google will soon be making $8 billion per year in mobile revenue.



So why is mobile advertising so effective? Mobile advertising has quickly improved so that now there is little difference in quality between a mobile advert and a desktop advert.
A positive difference for advertisers is the amount of space mobile adverts take up on the smaller screens, making them more visible and increasing the CTR.

Currently, mobile Facebook users have a limited exposure to adverts, whereas on desktop the amount of advertising is steadily increasing. However, advertisers are expected to spend $6.4 billion on mobile advertising this year, an increase of 62%.

As well as an increase in advertising, an expected increase in the number of mobile devices capable of accessing Facebook ensures mobile advertising will be a success.

What do you think of mobile advertising?

FeedBurner: Will Google Shut it Down?

Over the past year or so, Google has been giving us signs that its FeedBurner RSS service is heading into oblivion. Some observations:

• There is no official Google+ FeedBurner account.
• In July of this year, Google failed to renew the FeedBurner domain in Japan – feedburner.jp. A listing with Domain Tools indicates the domain is now owned by Satoshi Mito and is now inactive.
• On July 26th a post on the FeedBurner Blog, known as “AdSense for Feeds” indicated the blog was shutting down because as Google said, “we’re just not generating enough content here to warrant your time, so we won’t be posting here any longer.”
• On July 26th Google shut down the FeedBurner Twitter account with this message:

• On October 20th Google shut down the FeedBurner API causing developers who still rely on RSS technology to worry.
• Google also appears to have stopped offering customer support for FeedBurner. The “Contact Us” email link in FeedBurner no longer works and when I contacted Google I was told “Google doesn’t offer technical or other support for FeedBurner any longer.”

In the event you’ve forgotten how the RSS service works here’s a brief description. Once you connect your RSS feed with FeedBurner, Google caches the feed on its servers and delivers it to those who have subscribed to it. Subscribing to your feed is made easy because an HTML page replaces the XML file in your browser. Owners of the feed may also choose to embed ads in their feeds in order to monetize it. Most importantly, to many, FeedBurner provides a number of statistics such as the number of subscribers and the number of views to your blog posts, for example.

Some argue RSS is “Old School” but developers and podcasters still heavily rely on the service. In September, Dan Benjamin who runs a prominent podcast network, announced he was abandoning ship and moving to another RSS provider.



Many publishers (including me) rely on FeedBurner to publish their RSS feeds. It seems to be time to reconsider this as Google appears to be sending clear signs it could pull the plug on FeedBurner any day now. Hopefully Google will give us ample notice before it does pull the plug so we can look into some of the alternatives. Maybe we’ll look at some of those alternatives in a future post.

Do you use FeedBurner or an alternative provider?

Facebook Barely Beats Twitter, Trounces Google+ Among Teens

It came as little surprise that Facebook was the social network of choice in a recent survey of 7,700 teens across the U.S. But now that the study’s authors have revealed its numbers, we can see just how much — or indeed, how little — Facebook won by.

The teenagers in the survey, conducted by Gene Munster and Douglas Clinton at analyst firm Piper Jaffray, were asked to rank social networks in order of preference, from 1 to 3. Alternatives to Facebook included Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and LinkedIn.

Facebook was the first choice for 3,280 of the teens, followed by Twitter with 2,118 and Instagram with 928. Google+ won the hearts of 430 teens, while Tumblr and Pinterest, respectively, trailed behind. (We don’t know the identities of the five teens who ranked LinkedIn first, but you should probably hire them.)
However, Twitter (1,874) and Instagram (1,680) both outranked Facebook (1,580) when it came to second-choice votes. Google+ had its best performance in the third-choice voting, where it just managed to outperform Twitter — but still got beaten by Facebook and Instagram.

Still, the search giant’s nascent network (Google+ is still little more than a year old) can take some solace from the survey. More teens chose it over the supposedly hot services Tumblr and Pinterest, both of which, we imagine, would perform well among twenty-somethings.

But there’s little doubt that Facebook remains king of the hill. “We believe Facebook is well positioned to maintain its spot as the top social network despite competition from Twitter,” Munster and Clinton wrote, reiterating that they think the stock is undervalued — and that the Instagram purchase looks increasingly smart.

What is your preferred social network? Tell us in the comments below.

How to Edit Video on YouTube

Wave goodbye to the days of inaccessible, high-priced video editing tools — they’re long gone. Anyone with a smartphone and a free YouTube account can create a video that could reach millions.
For context, there are now more than 1 billion smartphones in the world, and YouTube video views surpassed 1 trillion in 2011. Basically, the world has video fever.
And anyone with a camera phone can film. What you may not know is that YouTube has some basic editing tools built into its website.

The YouTube editor is rudimentary, even when compared with simple video editing programs like Movie Maker and iMovie. Let’s not even talk about how it stacks up to Final Cut Pro — it doesn’t.
Even though it’s basic, YouTube editor can still be useful. But while it is relatively simple to figure out, particularly for anyone with previous editing experience, there are some potential pitfalls. Here are a few tips and tricks to help you get the most out of the available tools.

Locate the Editor and Timeline

Many people don’t even realize YouTube has built-in editing capabilities — after all, the editor is not easily found on the site.

One way to access it is by going directly to the URL, which is YouTube.com/editor. Or click on “Video Manager,” which will make the “Video Editor” tab appear directly under the search bar at the top of the page.

Once you get to the editor, you will need to figure out the timeline. Linear video editors like YouTube’s are based around an intuitive and easy-to-use timeline. If you want to add a clip from your pool of videos into the project, simply drag it onto the timeline. You can also include any YouTube videos that were uploaded with a “Creative Commons” license. To do this, click on the tab marked with an encircled “CC,” find a video and drag it in. You can reorder clips once they are on the timeline.

Efficiently Trim Your Clips

The only way to edit the length of your videos is by trimming from the beginning or end. Unlike most video editing programs, YouTube does not let you split and cut parts out from the middle of the video.
If you want to remove anything from the middle of the video, you’ll have to drag the same video into the timeline twice, then trim each down. You end up having two different clips from the same original source on the timeline. Obviously, you can do this more than twice, depending how much you want to chop up the footage.

The photo below shows a single video dragged onto the timeline twice around a text title. The videos are trimmed appropriately, so roughly half the video will play, then the text title will appear for two seconds, followed by the rest of the video:

Also, be aware that the trimming process isn’t always smooth. While you’re adjusting the slider on the timeline to trim a video, the video constantly reloads on the display. The best way to trim a video is to pre-decide the exact startpoint and endpoint, rather than trying to eyeball it while dragging the trim bar.

Go Easy With the Stabilization

Usually we don’t use tripods when shooting smartphone video, which means filming can get pretty shaky. The YouTube editor provides a tool to help stabilize shakiness, to a degree.
If you mouse over a clip on the timeline, three icons will appear. Click on the center one, which resembles a magic wand. That particular clip will pop open in a new window with several editing options.

Before anything else, check the box in the bottom-right corner of the window that reads “Preview effects side-by-side with original video.” Then adjust the “Stabilize video” bar to remove some of the shake. Unfortunately, there is a significant clarity tradeoff involved. The more you stabilize the video, the blurrier it becomes.
Before using the stabilization bar, or any other, it is usually a good idea to try the “I’m feeling lucky” option. Sometimes that makes the slight adjustments your video needs to shine.

Avoid the Temptation to Transition

The YouTube editor allows you to combine multiple video clips, a very useful tool. Simply drag multiple clips onto the timeline and arrange them in whichever order you fancy.


The editor also includes several options to segue between the clips. You can find these beneath the “Video Manager” tab, by clicking on the icon that resembles a bow tie. There are 15 segue options; add them to your project by dragging them onto the timeline. My advice, however, is to avoid nearly all of them. Other than the first two (Crossfade and Crossblur), which are relatively subtle, each of the other transitions will make your video look amateur.
Or select some of the sillier ones, such as Heart and Star, for ironic or comedic purposes — if that’s your goal.

If you really want to break up the clips, use a blank black screen. To do this, click on the text tab, marked with a lowercase “a” and located next to the transition tab. Drag the “Centered Tile” to the proper space in the timeline. When you place it, a popup box will appear. Simply delete the “ABC” from the text box and you’ll have a two-second black screen transition.

Thinking About Adding a Soundtrack? Proceed With Caution

You have the option to add music to your video. To do this, click the tab marked with a music note. A list of songs will appear. These are the only songs you can use; you can’t drag in outside audio files. Even with the option to sort by genre or artist, the list of songs can be tricky and frustrating to navigate.
If you do find an appropriate track, you may choose to either completely replace the audio from your video or engineer a mix between the song and the video’s audio. First, drag the song into the timeline below the video clips. Once that is done, an easy-to-navigate yet often buggy slider will appear on the right side of the screen.

Some of my videos just don’t seem to like mixing with the soundtracks. Usually, I fix the bugs by refreshing the page or taking the video or song out of the timeline, then replacing it. You may have to play around with it for a while to get it right.

“Please Note: After you change your video’s soundtrack to one from the YouTube library, the video won’t be eligible for revenue sharing. Additionally, advertisements may be displayed on videos that contain soundtracks from the library.”
—YouTube

Another shortcoming is that you can’t trim the audio clips at all. If a song is longer than your video, the song will simply end awkwardly at the point where the video ends. Also, you can’t strategically line up the song and the video.

Finally, should you choose to use audio, YouTube will automatically add advertisements to the associated video. And using a song from YouTube’s library negates your ability to monetize a video if it goes viral.

The Secret to YouTubular Video Editing

The YouTube editor is great for compiling footage and making minor improvements to the aesthetics of a video. The secret to great YouTube videos, if there is one, is to start out with solid footage. As with anything, post-production techniques generally won’t yield any miracles.

Keep a steady hand when shooting for stable videos. Go for compelling camera angles. Learn how far from your subject you should stand for optimal volume. And always keep in mind that you have millions of YouTube fans waiting for you to entertain them; so keep practicing and try to produce something amazing.

If you’ve got great tips about how to get the most out of the YouTube editor, let us know in the comments section.

How to Protect Your Brand's Social Reputation?

Every second across the globe, people are logging on to a social media networks like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. They are staying connected to each other 24x7x365 days, sharing incidents, anecdotes, personal experiences, music, movies, information and much more. With the social media network assuming such expansive proportions, few business owners can afford to ignore their social reputation management strategy.

Whether you own a full-time business or a fledgling enterprise, you just cannot ignore the tremendous reach of the online market. More and more buyers are shopping online rather than personally jostling at the neighborhood market. To tap this huge market successfully, you need the right online marketing strategy, and social media should be an integral part of that strategy.

Why should you take the social media seriously?
A brand is not built-in a single day but it takes just a few disgruntled customers to spoil all that hard work. This is all the more true for the volatile online market where customers have million choices at their fingertips and brand loyalty can be very fickle. Aggressive competition and unethical promotional practices from rivals will force you to take your social media reputation management seriously and be alert about any efforts to besmirch your reputation.

Any news on the social media goes viral instantly. This means, all the latest happenings, including the latest offerings from business houses are relayed to thousands of social media members through an endless network of mutual friends. The relevance of social network in today's world also means that any bad word about your company will take just seconds to circulate among millions of members, thereby causing irreparable damage to your brand.

In today's world of online connectivity, customers are really the king. They have endless opportunities of analyzing and evaluating a company's reputation through logical and critical comments on various parameters. They make optimum use of review websites, self-blogs and social media platforms to reach out to each other and exchange information and advice. Most importantly, customers take each other seriously and respect each other's opinion about a particular company or brand.

How to maintain your brands positive image?
It is vitally important for you to be serious about your brand presence on the social media and make sure that your reputation does not suffer. You must be genuinely interested in having a positive presence on these platforms and reach out to customers in a proactive manner. Make your presence interesting by offering innovative services and useful information. Interact with customers meaningfully and respect their views. Think of ways of making customers review your brand in an affirmative way rather than self-promoting your company. Never re-direct customers to other links for any customer service or for lodging complaints. Offering help shows that you take your customers seriously and are willing to discuss their grievances even after the transaction is over.

Do not leave a standard reply for all customers but personalize your response as each of them will have specific complaints. Customers will consider your company as a genuine brand with great after-sales service and circulate the good review among their friends on the social networks. As part of your social media reputation management strategy, be prompt in your response to complaints. The world is moving at breakneck speed and customers will float away from a company which takes weeks to respond. On the other hand, most dissatisfied customers will have a good word for you if your response is prompt followed by quick action.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7327726

3 Guidelines to Make Sense of Social Media Measurement

Social promotions can be fruitful only when you are doing it the right way. But the catch is somewhere else. As the social networking sphere is open and free, whatever we do might just seem useful. And quite naturally, some actions might eventually turn out to be more harmful to your business than doing any good. This is why every digital media marketing manager must make an effort to use a series of analytical tools to calculate the success quotient of the strategies that he has deployed, and also to ensure that the level of engagement is not being damaged at any point in time.

Social media measurement can't be treated as a secondary activity in any digital media strategy. Instead, it must be treated as one of the most important aspects of any online marketing plan. However, when into social media measurement, care must be taken to ensure you aren't doing it the wrong way. If social media efforts aren't measured accurately, quite naturally, you will get wrong results. And these misinterpreted results might trigger misguided social actions. Either the overall reputation of a brand can be damaged almost overnight, or it will become impossible to make any good with whatever is socially done in the future. Quite interestingly, damage control measures seem to be useless in most cases, as the level of damage is rather profound.
Social media monitoring and measurement of success ratio is possible if you are getting a few basics right. Though, there aren't any prefixed guidelines for the procedure, yet experts believe most of us can get it right if we are doing 3 simple things simultaneously. And believe me folks, I did it their way, and was pretty satisfied with the results.
So I thought it will be good if I can share these 3 pointers with you guys today. They are given below.

1. When measuring social media activities, make sure you are not pulling out old records and analyzing the same. This will be a waste of time. You need to work on recent data, and create fresh results. The same reports could be further analyzed to draw a variety of important conclusions.


2. Double-check each data from at least two different sources. This will provide insurance to the results that come out.


3. Use at least a couple of social media measurement tools together, to develop a more comprehensive report.

Follow these 3 pointers, and I guess you can create a pretty useful social media activity report.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7278043

4 Ways to Use More Visual Content In Social Media

Visual content is rapidly becoming an integral part of social media. Facebook redesigned its entire layout to incorporate more imagery with the new cover photo and Timeline layout. Social networks like Pinterest and Instagram have exploded in popularity over the last year. Smartphones have upgraded to include a higher-resolution camera to keep up with user preferences.

More and more, the importance of images in social media marketing has grown. As a business owner, it is important to stay on top of these types of trends if you want to stay relevant and keep your fans happy.
Here are four ways that you can get more visual content in your social media strategy:

Decide What Types of Images Work Best
Every business can be expressed through images, you just have to do a little brainstorming to figure out what will work best. For some companies, it will be obvious, like a handcrafted jeweler will use images of her pieces or a photographer samples of his work.
Other companies may have to get creative with the images they choose. As long as it has a clear connection to the type of business you have, the image will be helpful. If you are a dentist, you can use images of teeth- healthy and unhealthy- to give a visual impact. If you're an auto mechanic, use images of damaged parts that you typically repair.

Build an Image Archive
It is a good idea to have a folder of images to use for your business. If you don't have one already, get a digital camera. You do not have to be a professional to take some great pictures. It just takes a little practice. Most cameras come with an Automatic setting so all you have to do is point and shoot. Experiment a little with lighting to find what works best and take more than one picture of the same item so you can pick the top one.

If you don't have the time or you just can't seem to get a great shot, you can hire someone to take pictures for you. You can also use images from sites like Flickr that offer creative commons licensing for some of their images.
Put all of your business-related photos into a computer file so that they are easy to access when you need to upload them to your social media.

Integrate Images to Social Sites
You can use your images on your website, blog and social media updates. Pictures add visual interest to anything. Using them on social media will get more of your followers' attention.
The images that create a lot of interest get a lot more attention, especially on sites like Pinterest. Try using close-ups of your products, include images of your staff and your business's physical location (if you have one). Pick a great image to use on your Facebook cover photo in order to stand out.
You will get more response from your Facebook posts if you attach an image or video to them. Internet users have a short attention span, so if you want to grab their attention, an image is the best way to do it quickly.

After a while, you will be able to determine what types of images get the most interaction and you can adjust your posts accordingly.

Encourage Customer Images
People love to share these days. Encourage your fans and customers to submit their images that show them using your product, or anything else that is related to your business. You can host a photo contest and promote it through your social networks.
You can also ask your fans to "pin" their favorite products from you on their Pinterest boards. Come up with a unique hash tag for your business and ask followers to use it when posting images on Instagram.
What have you done to start getting more visual content onto social media?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7312810

Grow Your Facebook Presence With These Tips

Many brands are enticed to start a Facebook presence when they see the success of companies like Target and Starbucks. Your practice may not reach hundreds of millions of fans (although it may), but there are targeted steps you can take to build your Facebook page quickly and efficiently.

Use what you already have 
One of the reasons national brands are so successful on social media is because they had a loyal fan following prior to setting up their accounts. Chances are, your Facebook page is not the first online interaction you'll have with your customer base. Use your already established channels such as an email newsletter and your website to drive traffic to your new Facebook page. This is as simple as putting a link to your page above the fold on your emails and website pages in the form of a Facebook logo.

Utilize the (free) tools Facebook gives you
The native Facebook platform provides many opportunities to engage with your community once they become fans. One option is to ask questions using Facebook's poll feature. Remember that many people aren't comfortable interacting with brands on a daily basis, so don't overuse this feature. Ask multiple choice questions so that your fans can answer them quickly and easily. Ask engaging questions that you would want to reply to - don't just use this for target market research. There are paid tools you can use on Facebook as well, such as Offers, which give your fans a special discount on procedures. To take advantage of an Offer, click "Offer/Event" at the top of your publishing box, choose "Offer", and follow the steps Facebook provides for you to create your discount.

Launch fun contests
Many brands see success with contests on Facebook - use an application like Easy Promos to easily create an engaging contest your fans will want to enter. Ideas include gathering their name and email (valuable information for that email newsletter you run) to give them a chance to win something (it can be as simple as a Visa gift card or a free electric toothbrush). Make sure your offer is enticing enough for your fans to enter - offers have to be valuable in order for people to feel comfortable giving you their personal information.

Explain yourself 
Many companies scream at people to "like" them on Facebook... without providing any incentive as to why they might be interested. Instead of just promoting "Like XYZ Dentistry on Facebook", you should say, "For more fun tips, promotions, and photos, like XYZ Dentistry on Facebook!"

Be relevant
As tempting as it may be, don't only talk about your practice on your Facebook page - show that you care about community events and local news. If your city is voting on whether or not to put fluoride in the tap water, write a short blog post about what this means for your patients. Or, if you don't have time to write your own post, publish a link to a local news story about it. The key to social media is to be social, not sales-y.

Keep content fresh
No matter what types of content you post regularly - contests, blog posts, or questions - change it up frequently so you can measure what works and what doesn't work for your page engagement. Posting regularly will also entice your fans to check back more regularly to see what content you've published.

Watch your insights
Facebook's free Insights tool gives brands a good idea of what posts increase engagement... and what posts do not. You can easily click the Insights tab on your Admin panel and see how many fans react to individual posts. You may find that on average, more fans like and comment on posts that include photos or stories about certain subjects. Pay attention to your successes so you can easily repeat them.
Overall, growing a Facebook page following seems like a daunting task - but if you follow these few key tricks and don't give up after a few short months, you will almost certainly see success in your online community.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7315337

Love or Hate Facebook’s New Personal Promoted Posts?

Facebook announced on Wednesday U.S. users will now be able to promote their personal posts to friends for a fee, but the news is being met with mixed reactions.
Although testing first started in New Zealand in May and has since rolled out to more than 20 countries, those in the U.S. can now pay to make sure your network never misses a big update in your life, from a baby announcement to an event you’re organizing. But each promoted post will cost you $7.
That’s right, you can pay to make sure your content is seen by friends on Facebook. This raises two major questions: Why should you have to pay for something that was once already a part of the site, and does this mean we’ll now inundated with life updates we don’t really care about?
Some argue users might not take advantage of the promoted option, while others believe it could be a great resource for getting news out about bands, garage sales and ticketed events. Facebook seems to think it will make the entire experience better for its users.



“Sometimes a particular friend might not notice your post, especially if a lot of their friends have been posting recently and your story isn’t near the top of their feed,” Facebook said in a blog post. “When you promote a post – whether it’s wedding photos, a garage sale, or big news – you bump it higher in news feed so your friends and subscribers are more likely to notice it.”
But what say you? Is this a good thing? A gateway to even more news feed clutter? Take our poll below and let us know what you really think.

7 Editing Tips to Improve your Blog-Writing Skills

Developing your blog-writing skills is a slow process. Work on your technique continuously and your work will attract readers. Take in readers critiques for they know best how well you are passing on your thoughts. Neglecting the editing aspect of blog-writing will deter your readers from your blog.  Here are the reasons why writers need to edit and how to edit your blog articles.

Let's start at the basis of why writers need to edit.

• Inspirational chaos. Say you came across an amazing idea for a blog article that you know and feel will bring in traffic from the web. Then you start typing away with no end in sight. I like to call this ‘verbal/written diarrhea' where your words just flow in every direction. Editing will help your thoughts come together in the end.
• Diverse ideas. Writers tend to get lost in their sentences or words and don't take the time to double-check if their sentences would make sense to a reader. People may capture your writing differently than you had thought. In the creative process ideas get intertwined which can cause for messiness and a blog article that isn't easy to read.
• Grammar and all that other stuff. Editing as you write never works out!  Take your time to edit your blog article after you have finished. We all miss one or two words when editing - sometimes we don't even notice when we press the wrong key so spell-checking and revising each article afterwards is a must.
• Oh, you speak English, too? Even if you consider yourself an English-native speaker - edit your articles. Just because you were born into the English language and learned about it all your life doesn't mean you won't make any errors (it's very naïve to think so).   

Follow these 7 simple tips to when editing your work that promise great writing skills for future blogs: 

1. Take a breather after writing. The first mistake writers make is editing their post right when it's done. Writer's thoughts are fresh in their heads and when re-reading their article they might not pick up on the errors right away. Giving yourself time will put you in the reader's seat without prejudice to your own work.  You won't remember why you chose that exact word over another. This is the only time I recommend distractions: TV, music, Facebook, what have you. The key is to focus on unrelated things then come back to your article.
2. Divide and Conquer. Divide your editing into three processes: content editing, structure editing, and grammar editing. Being more specific while editing will help you focus on specific grammatical errors. Again, take your time.
   -Edit content. Review your article keeping an eye out for sections that don't make sense. Look for unfinished paragraphs and fragments. After identifying them, work towards fixing the errors.
   -Edit structure. Write your articles in a way that the reader will be able to follow your content. Structure your content using bullets or bold headers.
   -Edit grammar. Lastly, edit grammatical errors. This shouldn't take more than 10-15 minutes for a 800-900 word article.
3. Less is more. When it comes to words - less really is more. Don't use complicated jargon unless your blog's audience understands the lingo. Readers know when you have used the same words and are saying the same thing again. Remember the reader is smart - don't underestimate their ability to understand your words. Adjectives and adverbs can confuse and distract readers. Keep overused words such as "definitely," certainly," "really," etc. out of your article.
4. Don't trust Spell-check. Trust your spell-check software lightly. These tools don't "understand" your writing and don't grasp variations of sentences or word usage.
5. Read at random. Choose a random paragraph from your article and edit it. Then choose anotherrandom paragraph and edit that one. Do so until you have finished editing them all. I know you're asking yourself why? This tactic stops you from reading in "autopilot." You wrote this article so you know what's coming next and you may miss obvious mistakes.
6. Don't overdo it. What's harder than actually starting the editing process? Knowing when you've had enough. No sense beating a dead horse. If you find yourself rewriting the same sentence over and over then you should call it a night. Reaching the publishing stage is stressful, but don't let your indecisive editing keep your article in the drafts folder.
7. Learn from your mistakes. After following the steps above, you will be closer to a perfectly written masterpiece. Learn from the mistakes you picked up in the editing stage. Analyze what you've done wrong and practice to get to your goal writing style. When you write your next article make a list of your mistakes along with your corrections. This will help you remember your mistakes and hopefully not repeat them. 

Twitter Thinks It May Know Your Friends

Love the “People You May Know” feature on LinkedIn? Then you may be happy to learn that Twitter is essentially copying the feature. Instead of a widget, though, Twitter will suggest potential contacts via a weekly email.
Twitter already offers suggestions for who to follow, of course, and those have gotten more prominent (and relevant) on the site as the company has refined the widget. It’s based on an algorithm that has gotten better and more personalized, and now even takes into account your location.
“People You May Know,” however, gets populated differently. Twitter said in a blog post that the people suggested are based on “signals” such as who your friends follow and the contact information imported by the people you connect with on Twitter.
As an example, Twitter says if several people you follow also follow someone, that person could come up as a person you may know. Twitter told Mashable “People You May Know” uses contact information this way: If your friend uploads his address book and it includes your email address, and then you sign up for Twitter with that email address, Twitter may suggest your friend to you as an account to follow.


In any case, Twitter users should begin to get suggestions via email in their next weekly update from the service. Don’t want them? It’s easy enough to turn off in your settings for email notifications. The new feature strikes us as a little redundant considering the existence of to “Who to follow,” but we’ll reserve final judgment until we see the updates for ourselves.
What say you? Do you think “People You May Know” is extraneous, helpful or whatevs? Sound off in the comments.

Facebook Stock Closes at 7-Week High

Facebook shares ended the day up 6.5% at $23.30, the first time the company’s stock has closed above $23 since the end of July.
The company’s stock rallied following the news that Facebook is working with a small number of ad exchanges to test out advertisements on third-party mobile apps. Investors appeared to see this as a positive sign that Facebook is moving towards finding a way to monetize on mobile.
Facebook’s stock plummeted to an all-time low of $17.55 in the beginning of this month on investor concerns about the company’s ability to boost its revenue in the long-term. The stock began to climb back from the bottom after CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged not sell off any shares for at least a year and later pledged to double down on mobile in his first post IPO interview with TechCrunch.
Facebook is still trading well below it’s IPO price of $38 a share

Twitter Announces New Look for Profile Pages, Updated Mobile Apps

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo went on NBC’s Today Tuesday morning to announce a new look for profile pages on the social network and a new iPad app plus updated iPhone and Android apps.

“We rebuilt Twitter for iPad from the ground up to make it fast, beautiful and easy to use,” Costolo said.

Today‘s website explains:

What’s the biggest change? There’s now a huge header image that runs across the top, sort of like the banner image that Facebook users have on their timelines. The page itself has been reoriented to play up other visuals as well: Your avatar is no longer tucked in the corner, but will display front and center. The photo stream, too, has been moved up, and will now be accessible on the apps.

In a release from Twitter, the company said the upgrade represents “our mobile-first strategy.” The company says that if you upload an all-new header photo on Twitter’s mobile apps or on twitter.com, “the same image will appear whenever anyone views your profile on these apps or the web. These new profiles are available for everyone.”

Twitter also updated its iPhone and Android apps to support new profiles and photo streams on profiles: “Swipe through the stream to see the photos that other users have shared, or tap any thumbnail to view their photos in fullscreen.”

The announcement also includes a new iPad app: “We’ve rebuilt the app from the ground up to make it fast, beautiful and easy to use. Tweets come alive with in-line expansion and support for photos, videos and web site summaries. Like Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android, this new version of Twitter for iPad also supports new profiles and photo streams on profiles. “

Apple Unveils New iTunes, Coming in October

Apple unveiled the newest version of iTunes Wednesday. The revamped version of the desktop app has a new edge-to-edge design. When you click on an album within iTunes it expands in place, somewhat like when you click on a folder in iOS.

Each album has a feature called “In the Store” where you can see at a glance all the top songs on that particular record.

Artists can opt to share photos with fans through iTunes. Coldplay, for instance, has already uploaded some photos to the service for fans to check out.

A split-screen view allows you to see your library while you’re adding songs to a playslist. The “Current Playing” window also has a drop-down menu available in the top-right corner that you can click on to see what’s coming up next in your playlist.

The mini-player within iTunes also saw a redesign, and now allows you to manage playlists and upcoming songs. iCloud is also now built into iTunes.

Apple says to expect to see the next-generation of iTunes launch in October, however, it did not provide an exact release date. The iOS version of the app also saw an upgrade today and is expected to be released later this month.

What do you think of the new iTunes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Social Media Marketing: Don’t Forget the Message

In today's digital age, an increasing number of businesses are utilizing social media marketing services to help bolster their brand’s online presence. However, without an integrated social media marketing strategy that includes online content, the likelihood of success on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and the countless other platforms sprouting up will only get more difficult. Social media marketing alone is not enough to really connect with your target audience. To do so, it requires an extremely important element: a relevant message.

An Integrated Social Media Marketing Strategy

It seems like the Internet has been around forever, but in the realm of technology, it is still somewhat in its infancy. Just like an infant, the Internet is constantly changing and evolving, sometimes daily.

Social media has become both an extension of this - a symbol for it. Thanks to the likes of Facebook and Twitter, the Internet -- and the world of marketing -- has changed in ways that no one could have predicted. It is no longer sufficient for a business to promote with newspapers, magazines, fliers left on car windshields, and television commercials. Rather, businesses must also employ an integrated social media marketing strategy that not only exemplifies their business goals, but speaks to the wants and needs of their target audience.

Creating That Perfect Message

It's all about the message. Each business stands for something. It doesn't matter if you're involved in the world of banking, film production, or underwater basket weaving, you must create that perfect message if you can ever hope to connect with your audience in a meaningful way.

For this "message creation," you have to take a step back and look at the big picture. You need to focus on what you would like your business to achieve and the types of consumers you are trying to reach. Your company's online message is defined by its online content. This content must reflect both your business goals and the demands and desires of your target audience.

Once you’ve crafted online content that accomplishes these two fundamental things, you are ready to construct an integrated social media marketing strategy that will efficiently and exponentially promote your message.

Promotion, Promotion, Promotion

When it comes to promoting your message, social media is an extremely powerful business tool. Before the advent of social media, promotions such as discounts and contests had to be waged on a smaller scale thanks to the logistical and cost limitations of the various offline channels. In those instances where a promotion could extend to a larger audience, the cost could be quite high and the time involved in coordinating and/or producing the message prohibitive.

With an integrated approach to social media marketing, however, promoting your business' message is much easier to accomplish. Social media allows a business to not only reach what might be considered a countless number of potential customers, the time and cost involved in doing is much less. In the past, an organized promotion might take several employees to pull off. Now, a single person or a small group can run a rather involved social marketing promotion to great effect.

The Bottom Line

Without the proper messaging, your social media marketing risks having a context-less, two-dimensional feel to it. By taking an integrated approach to social media marketing that infuses online content relevant to your target audience, you give context and meaning to your message, providing the best return on your social media investment.

Most Facebook Apps Can Post Behind Your Back

How many apps have you installed on Facebook? More importantly, how many of them could post something in your name right now, without your knowledge? Chances are, it’s more than half of them.

Privacy protection company Secure.me analyzed some 500,000 Facebook apps, and shared the results exclusively with Mashable. The biggest takeaways: 63% of those apps ask for the ability to post on your behalf — and 69% of them want your email address.

”It has become second nature to connect various apps like Instagram, SocialCam, AngryBirds, CityVille, and Spotify to your Facebook ID,” says Secure.me founder Christian Sigl. “You just click ‘agree’ without even really knowing what you are agreeing to. What you don’t realize is that social apps linked to your Facebook profile can pretty much track your and your friends’ whole life.

“It doesn’t matter what your privacy settings are, the apps still get this information.”

What the app makers could do with that information beggars belief. Not only could they effectively hack your Timeline and sell your email address to any unscrupulous buyer — they’re also potentially well on the way to stealing your identity. Some 30% of those apps know their users’ birthdates, which would in theory allow them to uncover their social security numbers.

The permission puts your friends at risk, too. According to Secure.me, 21% of apps — 1 in every 5 — can access the personal data of the user’s friends including friends‘ birthdays, education and work history. Some 12% of the apps can grab your location information at will.

Of course, few of us are concerned about the big name apps — the Instagrams, the Spotifys. These are companies that have won our trust. But big-name apps make up just a small portion of the 500,000 total. What do you really know about the maker of that personality test or music quiz you just posted to your Timeline?

Part of the problem, as Sigl suggests, is the fact that there’s no granularity here. You can’t initially decide which permissions the app really needs, and which go beyond its remit. You can’t give an app limited permission for a day or a week. App permissions, when they first pop up, are far too one-size-fits-all.

We reached out to Facebook, and here’s an official response from a spokesperson: “We give people a variety of tools to control their app experiences on Facebook, and hold developers to our Platform polices. Apps must specifically request the data they need to operate, including email addresses and publishing capability.

“After a user installs an app, apps are not permitted to post to that person’s Timeline without their consent. If an app is found to be in violation of these policies, we will take action against it.”

How many Facebook apps have you given permissions to? Let us know in the comments.

Google+ Launches Tools for Businesses

After a private beta test period, Google is releasing on Wednesday a suite of business tools for Google+ users.

The tools are available for free through the end of 2013, but users will then need a paid subscription to Google’s cloud-based software for businesses, Google Apps, for continued access.

Here’s a rundown of the new features:

• Private sharing. When you create a post, you can now label it as “restricted.” This will limit its visibility to those inside your organization (plus a few external partners if you so choose), and can’t be re-shared with anyone on the outside.
• Administrative controls. Administrators can set up company-wide sharing defaults for posts and Hangouts.
• Hangout & Calendar integration. Since July, Google+ users have been able to organize Hangouts directly from Gmail, and open Google Docs documents during those meetings. Now, users can attach Hangouts to Google Calendar events, enabling attendees to join a Hangout directly from the Calendar entry or original invite (see below).

In a blog post, Google said these new features were just the beginning. In the coming months, the company is planning to introduce a mobile version of Google+ for enterprise, as well as additional administrative controls.

Social media takes on ‘church’ role in times of need

Research has recently come to light underlining the pivotal role social media played during, and after, the Christchurch earthquakes.

Ekant Veer, a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Canterbury, has discovered that social media unexpectedly became the communal meeting place during the quakes. Veer has noted that the people affected increasingly took to social networks for help, to provide information and lend support. With the city undergoing such turbulent times - many buildings became unsafe for occupation and transport links were damaged - social media took on the role traditionally held by the community halls and churches.

The lecturer, who has revealed his findings in the lead-up to the Australasian Natural Hazards Management Conference, monitored a variety of social networks after the quakes and noted his findings. Overwhelmingly, it was found that people utilised social media for ‘immediate and timely updates’. In addition to providing practical information, such as where to find fresh water and food, social media was important in supporting those who were badly affected and created a great sense of community.

Christchurch Cathedral after the quake

Some significant players during the quakes included Geonet and Civil Defence who tweeted regular and useful updates. The hashtag #eqnz also came into play, helping boost the informative element that became so significant. News channels, whilst maintaining importance in informing the public as a whole, could not keep up with the instant updates boasted by social media. Subsequently, the quakes have led to heavier use of the platforms and claimed many more users.

Positive reports

In a time when social media is continuously cropping up in negative news articles, this is something that reaffirms the importance it can play.

The Christchurch earthquakes cannot be viewed in isolation as social media has played a significant role in other natural disasters. The disasters in Japan, for example, saw a huge spike in social media usage, with users relaying their support under such hashtags as #prayforJapan and posting ways in which others could help or donate. Similarly, in Australia, a Facebook page was created when it was announced that the Cyclone Yasi would hit Queensland. The page provided key updates, information and a place for users to connect. Studies have further shown that social media usage ‘during natural disasters is comforting, empowering and can limit psychological damage’. Clearly, it helps fulfil a number of functions in these times of need.

Two sides

Although social media was cited as one of the catalysts behind the London riots, it was proved in the aftermath how the good side overcame the evil. Initially, social media helped gauge public opinion, showing how unpopular the riots were, and united people and communities in combatting the situation at hand. Facebook pages and Twitter accounts were created, along with the hashtag #riotcleanup, sparking people into action to help their cities. In turn, this gained many ‘likes’ and retweets, as well as receiving further exposure with inspirational images of communities cleaning up their cities. A similar movement occurred in Vancouver following the riots there in June 2011.

When the dust had finally settled, social media also took on an important role in discerning those who had been a part of the riots. The authorities were made aware of images portraying individuals involved and those who had utilised social networks to incite trouble. In addition, users were urged to come forward with any information they had concerning the rioters.

Despite not being a natural disaster, these riots similarly show the role social media can play as becoming the ‘church’. It is evident that it helps promote the community and allows people with no prior connections to work together for the greater good. Furthermore, social media promotes support for individuals affected by the events. The informative element must also not be forgotten as users can be instantly kept up to date with significant changes and information.

It is all too easy to criticise social media at present, but perhaps people should look back to these events to realise the important roles it has played. Were it not for these social networks the essential help, information and support may have been far less than what it was, and in no way as swift.