Facebook: Streamlined Look for Pages

You're a social media specialist or a community manager who represent your business or companies? Facebook will bring more improvement to your accounts as they will roll out a new streamlined look for pages.

Key features include:

• An updated Page timeline design - a one column display at the right side that will show all posts of your page.
• Easier access to admin tools - you will have the ability to navigate to your ads, messages and notifications anywhere from the page. Of course creating a noticeable button for Build Audience (it's all about $$$)
• Pages to watch - a new addition for admins to create a list that is similar to your business. Clear enough, those may be your other pages and your competition.

Photo by Facebook:

Social Media and Narcissism

Do you have these signs? Maybe, unconsciously, you're being one of these.

Infographic Credit:
http://www.bestcomputerscienceschools.net/selfies/

Instagram Introduces Instagram Direct

Instagram, the photo and video sharing app acquired by Facebook, announced today that they launched a new feature to support private sharing through Instagram Direct.

Instagram pointed out that there will be moments in our lives that we want to share, that will only be most relevant to a smaller group of people, thus this feature.

On their blog, Instagram wrote the steps to use this feature:

When you open Instagram, you’ll now see a new icon in the top right corner of your home feed. Tap it to open your inbox where you’ll see photos and videos that people have sent to you. To send a photo or video to specific people, tap the camera button to enter the same simple photo or video capture and editing screens. At the top of the share screen, you’ll see the option to share with your followers (“Followers”) or to send to specific people (“Direct”). To send using Direct, tap the names of the people you want to send your photo or video to, write your caption, tap “send” and you’re done.

Instagram added that the photo and video will be received immediately from people you follow. Photos and videos from people you don't follow can send you but a request notification will appear - enabling you to decide if you want to view it or not.

I think this is another step to data collection for monetization - a typical thing about apps. Promoting everything publicly at the first phase and then giving privacy control to users once they get huge database of users. I'm predicting ads (sponsored posts) too will probably appear here soon. A couple if months ago, Instagram did announce that they will slowly introduce sponsored photos and videos. With the promise of giving users the ultimate control over the experience, Instagram opened another door to more and better insights on how users use their app and that data can be another sounding place for "targeted ads" in the coming month/s. Hey it's business after all. For whatever it's worth, cheers to Instagram for a great app!

Cheers!

Promoted Pins: Pinterest Will Start Showing Ads and Going Mobile

I've got an email yesterday from Pinterest.

Pinterest has been around for 4 years now and now they are taking their baby step towards monetizing. Yes, they will be putting their years of effort to leverage on ROI and mobile usage.

The first tests of ads will be in the categories feeds and search results. For instance you search for "Men's Fashion", you might see a store selling men's clothing nearby - like how Promoted Tweets work.

A lot of comments from netizens spurred from this, mostly negative. Some said that Pinterest just signed their death wish and some say that this is goodbye for them using the pinning platform. A few number of neutral responses say that as long as Pinterest will do it in a "not intrusive and spammy" way, they have no problem against it.

It is a fact that successful platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Dropbox start with free service before they introduced Twitter Promoted Tweets, Facebook Ads and Dropbox Plans. Little do most people know that in the end, it is all just business - and all business have costs to carry on their shoulders. Having to make an exceptional innovation and exquisite UI/UX platform should not be expected "free all the time" and/or there's always a price to pay for something "more".

At the end of the email it was signed by a guy named "Ben" who is obviously represented by Ben Silbermann, the CEO of Pinterest.

Google Buzz Re-announced Shutdown

In October 2011, Google Buzz announced that they will be shutting down the service. Just last weekend, Google sent a notification to Buzz users that the shutdown will take place on or after July 17th, 2013. This is the microblogging feature of Google that is closely like the service of Twitter and Facebook.

Wiki: Google Buzz was a social networking, microblogging and messaging tool that was developed by Google and integrated into their web-based email program, Gmail.

Google also announced in their blog that there are 3 ways to access your Google Buzz posts.

1. You can view it on your Google Profile
2. You can download it using Google Takeout
3. You can access it using Google Dashboard

I read their announcement 2 years ago and now I'm really surprised that Google Buzz is still around. =)) Kudos to Google for knowing when to stop though. :)

LinkedIn: New Privacy Policy and User Agreement

Today,May 13, 2013, is the day that LinkedIn rolled out their new Privacy Policy and User Agreement update. This is a follow up in my previous blog: LinkedIn: New Privacy Policy Made Easy. As we all know, yellow banners will always catch attention and that is where they put it. This is the actual banner that is linking to their revised page:

As promised LinkedIn has made a nice Privacy Policy page. They used images and grouped the policies into 11 parts namely:


1. Introduction
2. Your Obligations
3. Your Rights
4. Our Rights & Obligations
5. Disclaimer
6. Limitation of Liability
7. Termination
8. Dispute Resolution
9. General Terms
10. LinkedIn “DOs” and “DON’Ts.”
11. Complaints Regarding Content Posted on the LinkedIn Website

In case you you missed it up there, here is LinkedIn's updated User Agreement.

As mentioned before, the most notable thing about this update is that LinkedIn will now be allowing ads to show up on your accounts. Be smart, read.

LinkedIn: New Privacy Policy Made Easy

Today, May 10th, LinkedIn has announced that they will be updating their privacy policy in the next week. LinkedIn said that they are committed to putting their members first that is why they made the announcement. 

These are the highlights for the Privacy Policy change are:

• They will be clarifying and simplifying language in these documents (use of legal words) to make it easier for members to read and understand.

• The updated Policy will be presented in a page that will eventually become a Privacy Portal.

• Sponsored content will be introduced in the LinkedIn feed. This feature will give LinkedIn's advertising partners the chance to serve designated content that members can like, comment and share.

Here's a short, very informative and straightforward video posted regarding this update.

Twitter: Keyword Targeting in Timelines

On Wednesday, April 17, 2013, Twitter announced the newest feature Keyword Targeting in Timelines. This feature enables advertisers to run their advertisements based on tweets of the reported 500 million total users and over 200 million active users. It is available in the full Twitter Ads UI and through the Ads API. Twitter said that "This new feature enables advertisers to reach users based on the keywords in their recent Tweets and the Tweets with which users recently engaged. This is an important new capability – especially for those advertisers looking for signals of intent – because it lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context."

How it works is for example a user will tweet about enjoying a pair of running shoes recently bought. Through a geotargeted campaign using keywords, the user may see a Promoted Tweet of that brand having a sale nearby - the user may then be able to retweet or share this to interested followers wanting to buy the pair. Of course this not only works for items bought, it also works for craving products and services such as a specific drink or a massage service.

Twitter promised that users won't see any difference on the application and ads are not shown frequently, plus users will have a way of dismissing Promoted Tweets if they find it irrelevant. They collaborated with test partners such as GoPro (@GoPro), a leader in wearable and gear-mountable cameras to ensure that the implementation and API will deliver promising results.

Furthermore, Twitter expressed their excitement as to how advertisers will take advantage of this new feature. It is by the thorough and active use of advertisers that paid ads such as Google Adwords transformed to how it is today. With Twitter's whopping number of over 400 million tweets per day, this is an avenue where advertisers should really consider to be dabbling on - a great option or addition to investing in search and display ads.

Vine: The next big thing in Social Media

Instagram was previously known as Burbn an HTML5 development by Kevin Systrom and Brazilian Michel "Mike" Kriegeon on mobile photography in 2010. On April 12, 2012, Instagram was acquired by Facebook for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock. It has been almost 3 years as a development that most of us are using for editing and sharing our photos in the social media channel. Thus come Vine - the new age of social media sharing.

Vine is a mobile app by Twitter that enables its users to create and post short video clips. Imagine having to share a location through video clips - like having a GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) for your followers and friends to see.

Let's say you'll go to cafe and meet with your friends and would like to share that. You can take a video clip of yourself of the awesome outfit you will be wearing, take another clip on the ride going to cafe, take another clip laughing with friends and a clip of what you will having to drink. Think of all those clips compile into one tweet, share, or post in Facebook. A growing number of Hollywood celebrities are using Vine to keep their fans both entertained and updated. The Philippines, which follows most western trends may soon come to discover this amazing app. 

I personally think the development came from like how Instagram saw the opportunity and emerged in the social media space. As part opportunist, I find this quite smart.  Here's to the newest way of sharing and getting your friends to see how awesome - or bad your day went. =)

Vine can be downloaded for iTunes and Android. Visit their site for more information.