Better know and better use Social Media today

To say the Facebook Developer Platform changed the web as we know it would be a dramatic understatement. Originally launching in 2007 as a tool for developers to build apps for the social network, six years later it has evolved into a whole lot more.

Facebook has grown outside of the confines of Facebook.com and is not only a presence on many of the websites we visit — either through a Facebook log-in, or Share or Like capability. It's also a growing mainstay in the mobile world, allowing us stay connected and play games with our friends while we're on the go.

Friday, the Facebook Developer Platform turned six years old. We took the milestone as an opportunity to sit down with the Director of Platform Product at Facebook, Doug Purdy, to talk about the evolution of the Facebook platform over the past six years, what it all means, and where it’s going in the future.

A lot of businesses create Facebook pages and then assume their fans will engage with every post.

Bad assumption!

Just because someone has Liked your fan page doesn’t mean they’ll Like & comment on your posts.

After all, you aren’t “Friends” with them.

Social media networks have become a dominant force of almost every aspect of a person’s communication strategy. Businesses are remaining competitive by reaching their customers through social media networking. With effective management practices and low cost social media marketing, businesses have been able to use inexpensive ways to increase their visibility online. The extreme growth of social media has also assisted businesses in tapping into previously unknown markets.

The New York Times Customer Insight Group released a study on “The Psychology of Sharing,” which provided information on what drives people to share their information online. The purpose was also to understand factors related to how valuable the sharing of content online is to online marketing for businesses. Creating a personal connection between business customers has allowed them to retain first time customers.

How long has it been since you’ve reviewed your Facebook Page?

Are you taking advantage of the latest Facebook features?

It’s critical that Facebook Page managers take time to regularly audit their Page and ensure that they are not missing out on new features.

This Facebook Page audit guide outlines 11 key items to review to help maximize your Page’s potential.

Social media is all about engagement.

Right? How many times have you heard that. Engage, engage, engage. So why are so many brands so bad at it?

Blasting out one-to-many messages and using platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as nothing more than broadcasting tools isn’t (a) engaging anybody and, therefore, (b) is rarely going to convert. Whereas, building relationships with people, maintaining conversations and listening to (and resolving) their issues and complaints will ensure your brand is represented in the best possible light, raising awareness of your products and services and significantly improving website footfall, lead generation and sales.

It is a business, after all. Your business. Are you prepared to do the work?

Content curation services, which had been one of the choice tools of marketing experts for some time now, are finally entering the mainstream.

Some research done by the guys over at LikeHack showed that this service is now often used not by marketing consultants but by ordinary people. This is due to information overload and the rising need for content filtering.

For this reason, content curation is evolving from not being only a professional tool but a tool that saves web surfers time as personal service.

The demise of Google Reader is only going to accelerate the use of these tools as people switch to these emerging technologies to filter their content to save them time and increase content relevance.

Social media is time-consuming for even the most dexterous mouse-clicker.

Luckily, keyboard shortcuts abound for multiple social networking sites – and they’re all laid out for you in this handy infographic by Quintly.

A keyboard shortcut is a specific key combination for a command that’s otherwise available only through a menu or interface. (Read: major time savings.)

Watch YouTube videos in full screen, send a Twitter DM, or toggle between your Facebook profile and news feed with just a key or two.

Might want to bookmark this guy for future reference!

How the world experiences TV has fundamentally changed. We no longer watch TV as a silent participant, rather as an active voice, sharing the experience as events unfold with people across the globe. Last year, 32 million people in the U.S. tweeted about TV programming: big events, like the Super Bowl (24 million Tweets) or their favorite weekly series, like American Idol (5.8 million Tweets during 2012). People tweet so much about TV that Twitter is becoming a fundamental part of how TV is measured.

We told you the folks at Twitter were clever, didn’t we? In case you missed it – they are.

In what we’re expecting is another example of Twitter’s “innovation through experimentation,” Twitter has come up with another way to increase your activity: importing your contacts.

On May 7, popular Twitter comedian Rob Delaney took over the @MLB Twitter account for seven hours.

Hilarity ensued, the account gained more than 20,000 Twitter followers, and all was well in the world.

If that’s the best case scenario for a celebrity Twitter takeover of a sports account, here is the worst.

As a promotion during the team’s playoff matchup against the San Jose Sharks, the L.A. Kings handed its Twitter account over to local morning show host Kevin Ryder earlier this week.

You’re a fan page PRO, right?

Right — but do you ever feel like you might be missing certain Facebook features or tricks?

No matter how long you’ve been running your Facebook page, my bet is you still have a few things to learn.

And even if you’ve learned everything — you still might have forgotten something.  ;)

So this blogpost is either going to be a refresher for you — or be full of things you never knew about.

Either way — I hope it helps!

No question, social media has transformed thetelecommunications industry.

The days of “Can you hear me now?” are over, and the telecom giants – Sprint, Verizon, Comcast, Bell – know they need to be proactive in cultivating customers via social media.

Unsurprisingly, there’s a bit of a love/hate relationship between digital media and telecom.

LeadSift, er, sifted through thousands of tweets to gauge how social media has changed the telecom industry. The infographic below represents their findings:

When you find something you love on Pinterest, sometimes you want to learn more so you can act on baking those cookies, streaming that movie, or buying that couch. That’s why we’re taking a first step toward making pins more useful. We’re also making it easier to pin no matter where you are.

How do you manage your online interactions right now? If you’re like me, the answer is probably “not very well.” I create tags in emails and reminders and lists and all that – or I favorite tweets and sometimes email tweets to myself so folks don’t get lost in the chaos that is Twitter.

But along the way, you’ll likely realize (to your horror) that you’ve let various opportunities slip by – and all because “social” isn’t easily organized. Till now.

We’re excited to tell you about a service, a social client relationship management (CRM) that will organize all of your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Google+ contacts in ways you’ve only imagined. This social CRM also integrates with your favorite apps like Hootsuite and Evernote (to name my two favs).

And better still? It just released new features – insights, signals and reminders – that will make this site the hub of your digital marketing efforts.

AND, they have a special offer for AllTwitter readers (only the fastest will snag it though, so read this quick!).