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New Facebook Picture Layouts

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Have you seen this, have you heard about this?

Facebook have changed the layout and the way you interact with photos on your Personal and business Pages.

Not only are the thumbnails larger, you can now like, comment and view interactions on individual photos without viewing them full screen. It makes finding the best pictures in an album a bit quicker and easier. You can also edit when and where the picture was taken without viewing it full screen, saving time.

That’s cool but what we really like is the ability to highlight (‘star’) an individual image thumbnail. This enlarges the image and shifts the rest of the thumbnails around it. This is useful for bringing first attention to specific images in an album, this is true for Pages especially.

A Zook-IT tip would be to highlight the images you want to make the most impact so your audience is drawn to them first. This could be highlighting a important person at an event or the best shot of a new product or service.

 

 

 

 

 

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Hootsuite Conversations – A First Look

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Hootsuite launched its new internal communications tool today, aptly named Conversations.

Seamlessly integrated into the dashboard, Conversations allow team members to share information, ideas, comments, concerns and links for communication via Hootsuite. Convocations’ main advantage is speed of reply and not having to switch constantly between Hootsuite and your email app.

We really like the ability to pull tweets from your dashboard into the convocations. This is important for teams since it allows questions to team members to be asked and answered much more quickly and accurately.

Example: A junior team member is handling an account and receives a derogatory mention towards the brand they are representing. They have an idea of how to respond but want to double check with their manager. Instead of emailing them with a quote of the tweet with a message they can simply use Conversations to send the tweet to the manager (or whole team) to get a quicker response on how to proceed. The manager or other team members can give their input in a conversation style, or take control of the tweet and write the follow up communication themselves if need be.

This is a logical step for Hootsuite to take; it means that you are likely to spend more time in the dashboard and less time switching between other communication apps, great for Hootsuite, great for you.

Have you used Conversations yet? Let us know what you think…

 

Craig Barker

Enlightenment Engineer

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Facebook: Can You Put A Price On It?

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It is only recently that social media has been accepted as a viable outlet marketing and branding. Business owners in need of creative marketing platforms are still coming to terms with what social media is all about. There is so much hype around the growth and popularity of Facebook and Twitter that it’s hard not to want a piece of the action, but far too many businesses have thrown their hats (and their wallets!) into the ring without a clear understanding of social media and its ramifications.

 

Times are changing; we operate in an age were creativity is just about the only thing that will get your business noticed. While deep pockets can go a long way, it is no longer the essential factor in a successful marketing campaign. it is no longer essential for a successful marketing campaign. Social media has effectively leveled the playing field for online marketing and promotion Start-up companies and super brands like Coca Cola have roughly the same chance at reaching customers and fans. This, more than anything else, is what scares the big wigs, CEO’s and industry leaders of our time.

 

In an effort to stay on trend, investors are buying shares in both emerging and or popular social platforms. But as a result the business leaders of our generation are now facing a new kind of problem, ‘The Intangible Dilemma.’  In a nutshell this is the problem of financially evaluation a company which has no tangible assets of any kind. How does one decide that the Facebook IPO is worth its initial $104 Billion evaluation or that Instagram is worth paying $1 Billion for? At this point it would seem that your guess is as good as mine.

 

On a daily basis, sites like Facebook and Instagram attract high volumes of visitors and each time they visit they deposit more and more personal information. It is this action that makes these sites as valuable as they are. For example, Facebook has approximately 900 million registered users with personal profiles. In the right marketing hands, this equates to pages and pages and pages of valuable consumer information. Additionally, the value of social media is dependent on the amount of traffic it can consistently generate. Remember MySpace? It used to be the place to be… not anymore! Twitter, Pintrest and Instagram, for example, all rely on the interest of an easily distracted and fickle group of core users. This is not to say that people will one day stop using these social media platforms altogether, it just poses the question of how long these sites will remain popular.  What new will be the new ‘it’ site a year from now?

 

The value of any social media platform is dependent on its continued popularity. The more information that gets pumped through the server, the more valuable the platform becomes. These evaluations are often subject to inflation because, among other things, they are based on projected growth. In other industries like service or manufacturing one can rely on the predicted growth because it works in conjunction with a companies profits. This is true in some respect when applied to social networks, but the catch is that these networks are also reliant on engagement. This means that the networks are only valuable if they are well used.

 

The financial evaluation of Pinterest, Instagram and the like, relies on the sites ability to stay on trend. It is my contention that, while valuable, these sites can be over valued for a number of reasons. One of which being that the sites appraisal relies on the growth in traffic. However this growth is not necessarily a reliable statistic because most social platforms are based on popularity. Meaning that even if there are 400, 000 users registered to any given site its longevity depends on a sustained commitments to uploading new material. Much like MySpace, Google+ and others have seen growth but have not been able to sustain it.

 

In my opinion Facebook will have to find a way to ensure stimulated engagement if they are to begin fixing the numerous problems that have come with its decision to go public. Will these problems ever get fixed, is there a sustainable solution? Only time will tell.

 

Liam Ponton

 

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You are what you Tweet.

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If you haven’t already, you may want to start censoring your social media. Recent reports suggest that nearly 3 out of 4 hiring managers check social media profiles regularly in addition to checking your resume.

Old news? Well think again. These recruiters are scrutinizing everything from your use of foul language to your pictures, not to mention your grammar and spelling! It’s hard to imagine that they would judge your personal profile and deem you unworthy because of your spelling! Especially since most people consider their profiles to be a place off the record. Not to mention, bad spelling seems to go hand in hand with social media, especially Twitter with 140 characters or less, it’s difficult not to abbreviate.

If you’re one of those people who likes to express your deepest darkest feelings, or your overt opinions, think before you act. You never know whose going to search you on Facebook or Twitter.

In my opinion, it’s easy enough to control your privacy settings on Facebook and most people by now have figured that out, but Twitter is another story! If you search almost anyone on Twitter their profile shows up with an “About Me,” an avatar, and an option to look at their past tweets.

Talk about nerve wracking! I can look you up and find out what you’ve been tweeting and who you’ve been tweeting to. Imagine all the times you tweeted in anger or in some emotional frenzy… now consider what a potential employer would think after reading those. Not good? Didn’t think so!

Well, unfortunately it gets worse! In the U.S. it is reported that 92% of companies are using social networks to find talent.

Seems ridiculous to judge someone based off of their social media profiles—at first. But if your profile is filled with pictures of you boozing it up and complaining about work or responsibility, can you really blame the recruiters?

Checking profiles is actually quite clever. Avoid the problem before it happens, filter out the unwanted behaviors, and find someone who is smart enough to keep their private life behind closed doors.

In the words of Zack Galifianakis, “you better check yourself before you wreck yourself,” in the case of social media, at least. Don’t assume that the recruiter has better things to do than investigate into your online world. Think before you tweet.

 

 

Naveen Sohi

July 31, 2012

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A Joke Too Far?

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This week a chap called Paul Chambers launched himself back into a legal pickle by appealing his conviction over sending a “menacing” tweet.

Back in January 2010 Paul was flying from Robin Hood Airport, England (yes, we named an airport after Robin Hood…and what?) to Northern Island. It was a bitterly cold and snow had forced the airport to close. At this point most of us can empathize with Paul, he must have been feeling pretty annoyed to put it nicely. What he did next has haunted him for the last two years…

He reached for his phone, opened Twitter and wrote:

“Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”

A week later an off-duty airport employee raised the alarm and sent the tweet up the ranks. Paul tried to pass off the tweet as a ‘joke’ but was convicted of sending a message of “menacing character” under the Communications Act 2003. The fallout for Paul is still unraveling, he is in and out of court, which is probably costing him a pretty penny, was fined £1000 ($1600) and given a criminal record.

Even in his understandable frustration Paul should have known better. In this day and age you simply can’t threaten an airport and be surprised if there are repercussions.

In my opinion the fine is justified, he did something thoughtless that resulted in a minor public panic. However should a ‘joke’ (no matter how distasteful) warrant a criminal record? And, to what degree does the fact that the ‘joke’ was sent on Twitter play in dealing out a criminal record?

To me this is a classic case of ‘where to draw the line’ – a joke to one person can be hilarious but potentially very offence and indeed menacing to someone else, in this case Paul’s Twitter followers and the public.

Deriving the ins and outs of what constitutes “menacing” and whether Paul was genuinely threatening the airport is for the lawyers to argue and the judge to decide. I am more interested in the effect this has on the policing of social media and our cherished freedom of speech…I’m not saying that threatening airports is ok but does this mean we can’t joke about committing crimes in general?

It’s the principle of the matter more so than I like to joke about crime. However there have been times when I ask myself, ”Should I post this? Will someone take it the wrong way? Will they realize I’m being sarcastic?”

If I was to tweet, “just seen an unlocked BMW, I’m going to steal it!” I wonder if I’ll get a knock on my door a few days later making sure that I’m not the proud new owner of a BMW…probably not.

What if I tweeted, “Hi @Rihanna you are amazing, next time I’m in LA I’m going to abduct you!” I honestly don’t know the ramifications of this, nothing could happen or I might receive a nasty Direct Message from her management or police might question me about my premeditated act of abduction, either way I’m sensible enough not to try it.

Either of these could be passed off as a joke but both categorically state that I intend to commit a crime, are they acceptable to be posted on Twitter? If so, do you think Paul should keep his criminal record? If not, should Paul keep his criminal record for a stupid mistake with minimum consequences for others?

Paul is still waiting to hear the verdict on his appeal; do you think he should have a criminal record?

 

Craig Barker

June 2012

 

 

 

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