Facebook's popularity is slumping in the UK as users become fed up with being bombarded with advertising, a YouGov survey has revealed.
In a report examining social media use among web-savvy Brits, the market research firm found a 9 per cent drop in Facebook usage since April 2012.
Among the people who had quit Facebook, 23 per cent said they'd done so because they were "fed up with social marketing promotions", up 18 per cent from April 2012. Exactly one-fifth ditched the social network because they were nervous their personal info would be handed over to third parties. Read more...
The new language of social media isn't made up of words; it's made up of pictures.
Everywhere you look on the social networks, posts with pictures get most of the attention and engagement.
Let's examine why images suddenly trump words on social sites and how this uber-trend will change your gadgets.
Why pictures rule
Blogging started out as public journaling. It was all about words.
One of the oldest blogs still in existence (and still one of the best) is Dave Winer's Scripting News blog. (If you visit the site, you can see that it's not exactly "visual.")
About 12 years ago, the number of good blogs on every topic started growing fast. Soon there was too much good stuff to keep up with. It was overwhelming to find and follow all of the interesting people. Read more...
These days, social media is a bit of a wild, wild West: While most of us understand the basic etiquette of real-world interactions, we've yet to reach a consensus on what behaviors are acceptable -- and what behaviors are not -- in our virtual lives.
Well, my friends, it's time to set some parameters. Behold the ten commandments of social media etiquette. Read them. Study them. Write them on the tablet of your heart. Together, we can avoid spiraling down into the pits of social media hell (a.k.a. MySpace, circa 2004).
Commandment #1: Thou shalt not tell thy friends too much
Social media opens up a window into our friends' lives -- and sometimes, that window shows us far more than we want to see. You know the type of stuff I'm talking about: cringe-worthy confessions about sexual shortcomings, bodily functions, or personal hygiene mishaps. For Zuck's sake, can't we keep some things to ourselves?
The concept of TMFI -- Too Much Facebook Information -- isn't only about embarrassing info. Oversharing can be as simple as posting your every thought and action, whether it's details of your daily jog or photos of your favorite burrito. We get it: You like Chipotle. We've seen beans and cheese before. Spare us the photographic evidence.
Other oversharing sins include getting a little too specific about your baby's, shall we say, "movements"; posting more than four things in any given hour; and tweeting or posting from the bathroom, the movies, the gym, or anywhere else with sticky floors and strange smells. Read more...
The market for enterprise social media and Web 2.0 tools is growing by over 20 per cent a year and will top $126m (£80m) by 2017 as firms look for better ways to collaborate and manage content across Asia Pacific, according to a new report from Frost & Sullivan.
The analyst’s Enterprise Social Media and Web 2.0 Market 2010 report describes the region as the fastest growing in the world when it comes to consumer social networking – pointing to countries such as the Philippines and Malaysia where some services are used by 85 per cent of the population. Read more...
Getting a positive return on investment from a social media campaign is about more than tracking the number of your Facebook fans and Twitter followers. It's about linking the social strategy to measurable business objectives, according to Gartner, which says most businesses aren't doing this.
A new study released this week from the technology consultancy says that half of Fortune 1000 companies will not receive a worthwhile ROI on their social media strategies this year. The rather basic advice to get more bang for your social media buck: Have a plan, measure its success and make changes if it's not working. "One of the keys is to know what you're trying to accomplish," says Scott Nelson, a Gartner analyst who focuses on social media strategies for enterprises. "Doing social media because everyone else is doing it is not a strategy." Read more...
Social media is old news to the digital natives currently enrolled in K-12 education, but as the news reveals on a semi-regular basis, a few adults overseeing education still can't wrap their heads around it. For all the Facebook pages set up for classroom discussion and homework help, there's a sordid tale like that of the New York City teacher who wrote "this is sexy" under the Facebook photos of his female students.
So, no surprise that on Tuesday, the NYC Department of Education joined the more than 40 national public school districts with its first official set of social media guidelines for DOE employees. Most notably, teachers are advised that approved Facebook pages and similar online outlets are permitted for classroom conversation, but there is to be no friending" or other such communication with students via personal accounts. Read more...
James Denham does not have a strong social media following. He’s basically anonymous; type his name into Google, and you’re not going to find anything about him. But in January, Denham ran across an image of what appeared to be two teenagers cruelly hanging a puppy by a string and posted it to his Facebook wall. Text on the image implores users to “share this picture” and contact authorities if they recognize the perpetrators.
The photo has since been shared over 70,000 times from this profile, making it among the most widely viewed content on the site. Yet what Denham didn’t realize at first is this image has been circulating on the Internet for years, and the culprits were identified long ago. Read more...
You might not often think about an ancient tradition like the Olympics Games in one sentence together with Twitter and Facebook, but that’s something that’s constantly on the mind of Alex Huot, the International Olympic Committee‘s (IOC) Head of Social Media, who will be speaking at The Next Web Conference this month.
Alex has been the Head of Social Media since January 2009, but has been a member of the Olympic communications team since 2000. His passion for technology started a lot earlier, when he got his first computer — a Commodore VIC-20 — at the age of 12. Read more...
Actor/comedian Aziz Ansari — the guy who plays "Tom" on "Parks and Recreation" — knows from social media. If you've ever seen his standup bit about harassing his little cousin Harris on Facebook — you'd remember because it would be that 15 minutes of your life where you couldn't breathe because you were laughing so hard — you know what I'm talking about. Read more...
The Japanese government has turned to social media to boost tourists visiting the country after spending $280,000 (Y21.5 million) to invite ten influential thought leaders from across the world to visit the country, according to a report from The Mainichi Daily News.
The plan comes after the government opted against a unique proposal to offer 10,000 free flights to visitors that communicate their vacation in Japan using blogs and social media. The innovative plan was hatched in October but it failed to gain the support of the Japanese tourism board, which has instead opted for a more targeted approach to leveraging social media. Read more...
What from the "Don't be stupid on social media" school of philosophy do you not understand yet? In case there's any doubt about what you should or shouldn't be saying or doing on sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, business psychologists from the U.K. are happy to let you know that those sites are being scoured for dirt or anything else that could trip you up with an employer, potential or existing.
The psychologists, part of a group called OPP, presented its findings at a recent conference on occupational psychology. "When applying for a new job, candidates spend hours pulling together a targeted, convincing and professional-looking CV to secure that interview. But what if your potential employer is not noticing your impeccable spelling and beautifully formatted covering letter, but instead raising an eyebrow at your flippant comments, risqué photos and questionable ‘check-ins’ on Facebook?" OPP says. Read more...
During the last presidential election, the use of social media in political campaigns was revolutionized. The Obama campaign gathered followers through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Today, all candidates have learned the organizing power of social media. However, a “Like” on Facebook, a YouTube view or a re-blog on Tumblr may not directly affect the ballot box. Each campaign must answer an important question: How do we turn a digital following into real-world volunteers? Social media campaigns for candidates should be focused on getting volunteers in the campaign office door, on the phones and out in the community. There are three crucial steps to accomplishing this task.
1. Share Ideals, Goals, Accomplishments and Behind-the-Scenes Footage
By sharing a candidate’s beliefs and goals via social media, candidates can connect with existing supporters and reach out to voters who aren’t yet convinced. Accomplishments, such as campaign milestones, will get liked, shared, re-tweeted and reblogged. Read more...
Business has had to cope with the challenge of social media for years. In the past, I've discussed how the rewards of using instant messaging and blogging at work are offset by several pitfalls, and I've laid out the challenges that IT and business managers face in dealing with these technologies.
Any business that hasn't addressed those issues with clearly communicated policies by now is behind the times, because today there is much more than just blogging and IM to think about. The rise of social media in the workplace is even more important to confront, because they have made it far easier to blog and interact socially on company time.
Not that productivity is the only concern. Imprudent use of social media can open the door to security threats and even lawsuits over libel. Those are the sorts of things that get companies' attention, so naturally more and more corporations are making efforts to lock down social networking sites on their networks. Good luck with that. Read more...
Do we need a social media kill switch? I don't think so, not judging by where I live.
Let me explain. I call home a fairly anonymous part of southwest London called Colliers Wood. Despite it turning into a nice place to live over the past 20 years, a week ago it saw more than its fair share - if ever there can be a fair share - of disturbances, including rioting, arson, looting and other types of mindless vandalism.
It didn't warrant much mention in the rolling TV or radio news, and few online heat maps even register what went on, but it was serious wrongdoing and, relative to the size of the community, among the worse in London, I'd wager.
Communities can stay connected by means other than the traditional knock on the door, such as TwitterPhoto: pixelbully
One of the benefits of living in this part of SW19 is that it is well served in a retail sense but in addition to family-owned shops and a thriving market, there are big-brand high-street names, which acted like a red rag to the criminals' bull. Read more...
