Category Social Media

Though in this case, I suppose, the order of the above should be reversed.  Facebook just announced that it has (once again) tweaked its News Feed algorithm.  The new change gives Business Pages more reach, by allowing posts tagging another Page to potentially appear in both Pages’ feeds.  According to this post over on Mashable.com, the new change “means brands will have greater reach than ever.”

Of course, this comes less than a year after Facebook devalued Business Page posts almost to the point of non-existance, in order to force more businesses to choose Facebook’s “Boost Post” monetary option.  Hence the title of this post.  And Business Pages have always been able to tag other Pages.  Though the potentiality of showing up in both News Feeds is something new, you’ll pardon me if I don’t go all gaga over the latest “upgrade”.

Still, any advance in potential eyes-on-posts is better than no advance at all.  A couple of notes about this change: It will not work for individuals tagging Pages (just as Pages cannot tag individuals), and don’t expect to start tagging Google’s (or Facebook’s) Facebook page and see your post views multiply astronomically.  The News Feed algorithm will still take account the relevancy of each post to both Pages to decide what to show.

In any case, we’ll certainly be giving it a shot. What are your opinions on this change?

Many of you may know (and just as many may not) that Facebook is once again updating its privacy policies. This time it’s the Data Use Policy, and the changes are scheduled to go into effect sometime around the end of this week. (What’s that, you say? You didn’t vote on any changes? Well, thanks to the apathetic response by users during the last update, Facebook has now successfully eliminated the need to put changes to a public vote, and thus eliminated the need to care about what the public thinks, as well.) The majority of the updates this time around focus on photo tagging and relevant ad placements. We’ll focus today on tagging, and save the ads for a later column.

Facebook’s Photo Tagging Example

So, what’s the story with this new update? Essentially, Facebook is advancing its “facial recognition” feature beyond where it currently stands, and plans to start adding your profile photo(s) to its facial recognition database, in order to make it easier for your friends to tag you whenever, and wherever, a photo of you might be uploaded to FB. That ability for friends to tag you has been in play for quite a while, as has the suggestion by Facebook of whom to tag in a photo. Where the big change is occurring is that previously, FB only scanned photos of you that were already tagged to add to its database. Now, FB says it “may” start scanning your profile photos, by which it means, of course, that it will.

Reading between the lines, what Facebook is really doing is adding another source of identification of you, yes you, to their database, which in turn will help them more easily identify who your friends are, where you go, what you do… and the end result of all of that identification helps them figure out what ads to show you (and therefore gives them additional selling power to the providers of those ads). Ultimately, it’s just the next logical step in Facebook’s facial recognition agenda, and not that shocking of a step at that, but it does bring to light once again the necessity for all FB users to learn, know, and control their privacy settings.

Facebook’s Tag Suggestion Example

In this case, there are two that are essential to visit, both found within the Account Settings / Timeline and Tagging header. (By the way, the information I’m dishing out here pertains specifically to accessing Facebook via your desktop computer. Things can, and almost certainly will, be slightly different when going through a smartphone or tablet app.) Look for the third section here, entitled “How can I manage tags people add and tagging suggestions?” Check, and change, the following two items to the settings you are comfortable with:

1) Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded?

I would HIGHLY suggest you set this to “No One”. (This may say “Only Me” on a phone/tablet.) This won’t stop your friends from tagging you if/when they upload photos with you in them, but it will keep FB from suggesting to friends (or anyone else) that it might be you in a photo. To control tagging, go on to the next step.

2) Review tags people add to your own posts before the tags appear on Facebook?

If this isn’t already, you should strongly consider setting this to “On”, to allow you to review any and all photos that are tagged with your name, before they appear on Facebook. Unfortunately, this does not mean the photo can’t be added or seen by others, it just means that it can’t be tagged with your name, or added to your Timeline. You can always request your friend to take the photo down if you really don’t want it to be seen.

One final caveat: While these two settings will help you limit potentially unwanted photo-exposure on Facebook, they will NOT keep Facebook from scanning your profile photos to add to their facial recognition database. Profile photos (and cover photos) are always set to “public” viewability by default, and this cannot be changed. So, for the more paranoid of you out there, that leaves you with one option — not using a picture of yourself as your profile photo. (Keep in mind that by signing up for Facebook, you are voluntarily agreeing to allow all of your personal information to be seen and/or used; you always have the option to delete your account.)

I certainly hope that this information has proved useful to you! If you think it has, why not share this post with your friends, whether they are on Facebook or not. You might also suggest that they sign up on our blog for future updates, and Like our Facebook page, as well. Thank you!

Seriously, go do it! You might be surprised about what you find, especially if you are someone concerned with your privacy. Or with your online reputation, which these days equates to your reputation, period. Remember to put your name in quotes for more accurate results, and log out of any Google account prior to searching.

Keep in mind that most of the information you find about yourself online was originally put there by Y-O-U, particularly if it was through one of the social media platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn. There are plenty of sites out there, though, that gather all that information together in one place for the entire world to see — Pipl, for example.

In any case, you do have some control over what is out there. You can change the privacy settings on your own social media accounts (or remove information entirely), though that won’t get rid of it elsewhere once it’s been collated. You may have to visit each “aggregate” site individually to request removal of unwanted public information.

If that seems like too big a chore, you can always hire someone proficient in online profile management (such as your friendly neighborhood web designer) to attempt a clean-up for you. And all of this holds true for businesses as well as for individuals. Check out this infographic from PR-Daily for some online reputation specifics.

And here we always thought that “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus”! Not according to this infographic from InternetServiceProviders.org, which breaks down social media usage by sex.   Most of the stats fall into the “expected” category, i.e. females make up the lion’s (or lioness’) share of Pinterest users, and so on.

Among some of the more surprising conclusions:

1) Pinterest drives more business referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined.

2) Even though Google+ is dominated by male users (or maybe because of that), the average time spent PER MONTH on Google+ is only 3 minutes!

What stats from this graphic make you go hmmmm?

If you’ve been on Google today, you’ve probably noticed that it is International Women’s Day.  In honor, we’re posting this infographic from Prestige Marketing on the use of Pinterest for business, as 79% of Pinterest users are female.  If  your business targets female consumers, you seriously need to consider a presence on Pinterest.

Even if that’s not the case, Pinterest is still worthy of consideration, as it’s almost totally a visual medium, and very few (if any!) businesses can’t be well-represented visually.  As this article from The Content Strategist states, “The value in Pinterest is that it’s beautiful, transforming ordinary content into a visually stunning format.”

Read through the infographic (warning: it’s big!) and if something strikes your interest (pun intended), give us a call at Diamond Mind Web Design to see how we can explore using Pinterest as part of your social media presence.

Okay, I know nothing about AI University, except this: They have a great marketing department! Check out this ad about bringing social media into the real world. You’ll “like” it!

Looks like Amazon is capitalizing (some might say “finally”) on the Social Media craze, by rolling out something new: Amazon Pages, which will allow companies set up their own pages on Amazon.com as “custom destinations,” in other words, landing pages.  These new pages will come with www.amazon.com/brandname URLs and dynamic designs with large photos and social media links.

So far, just an enhanced version of what is already available to businesses using Amazon for e-commerce.  The BIG news is that Amazon will be integrating what they call “Amazon Posts,” to allow companies to engage their audiences and market themselves across both Amazon AND Facebook.  And finally, they will offer Amazon Analytics as a way to track marketing efforts and sales results.  For more on the specifics, visit the Amazon page here.

One can assume that it’s only a matter of time before other social media sites like Twitter and Pinterest are added to the mix.  Even though the new Pages are as yet somewhat limited in what they offer, given Amazon’s huge stature in the online world, early adopters are likely to see a large (if temporary?) jump in their search engine rankings.  And it’s all free, so why not take advantage of the possibilities?  For a more detailed examination of this news, you can read the Telecrunch article here. Or to go ahead and get started, call Diamond Mind Web Design at 417.496-9905.