Facebook Testing New App 'Moments'

Sharing To Get Easier And More Private

One of the criticisms lobbied most consistently against Facebook is the complicated nature of its privacy settings. No matter how many tweaks the site’s algorithm goes through, choosing who can see what you upload is frustratingly difficult. It’s nigh-on impossible to select only those on your friends list who’d appreciate that link to TheFappening your uni mates should see – it’s why my auntie won’t look me in the eye anymore. 

Fortunately, a new standalone app from Facebook HQ might be about to fix that. Codenamed ‘Moments’, the app has been described in some detail in an article on TechCrunch. Apparently, the app features a series of tiles aligned in a grid. Each square on the grid represents a different set of friends or family, so when you click it will only share whatever you post with that set of people. Naturally, this process will be much faster than fiddling with your privacy settings on a post-by-post basis.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

Chances are, we’ve all experienced the horrific embarrassment of friends and family colliding over Facebook. While your friends know all the sordid little details of your time at uni (I even spoke to a girl one time. Don't tell my mum), your parents remember when you cried at an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine because you found the Fat Controller scary. The two parties should never mix, and the fear of it happening is currently agenuine reason to avoid sharing content on Facebook.

Unfortunately, we’re yet to see even the blurriest of screenshots of the app which might fix all that. In fact, apart from the description of its grid-based interface, we know pretty much nothing. All we do know is that it exists, and Facebook’s people are currently squishing its bugs. We're also told its design closely resembles Cluster, a third-party app which does pretty much the same thing.

Source: techcrunch.com

While it could be argued that those interested in the app could just switch to private messaging, some may find the chaos of a multi-user IM chat more trouble than it’s worth. Furthermore, the design of public Facebook is infinitely more pleasing than the design of its instant chats, with users able to like, share and respond to individual comments. In this sense, Moments may divide Facebook itself into dozens of little subforums, each featuring different groups of the people in your life.

While Facebook has a chequered past of app creation (I will personally give you £20 for every friend you have who uses Slingshot instead of Snapchat), they’ll hope that Moments will have sticking power. Facebook's failed attempts at app creation tried to steal market share from pre-existing, well-established apps, but Moments instead places a plaster over a problem they have with their own site.

The main Facebook app deals in content. Moments will worry about audience. 

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The New Pinterest Analytics Tool: How To Use It for Business

Are you struggling to measure your Pinterest efforts?

Do you want an easier way to track pins and engagement?

The new Pinterest Analytics tool gives you access to a variety of data, including how potential customers interact with your pins beyond your website.

In this article I’ll share how the new Pinterest Analytics features help you get the most out of your Pinterest marketing.

Pinterest Analytics Overview

Pinterest’s original analytics tool only shared information about how users interact with the Pin It button installed on your website. Unfortunately, those stats couldn’t give you a complete picture of whether your overall Pinterest efforts were working.

The newest Analytics features give you access to quite a bit more data, such as stats on engagement beyond your Pin It button. Now you can track actions that originate from your Pinterest profile—including boards and the pins you share (whether the pins are from your own website or not).

Check out new features found in the new Pinterest Analytics.

Why is this important? Many successful pinners spend more time curating and sharing content from websites other than their own.

The updated Pinterest Analytics tool gives you the data you need to see the bigger picture and determine where to spend your time and effort to maximize your presence on Pinterest.

The Pinterest Analytics Dashboard

To gain access to Pinterest’s new analytics, you must have a Pinterest business account. When that’s in place, head over to your analytics dashboard.

Your Pinterest Analytics dashboard shows an overview of the three main categories:Your Pinterest Profile, Your Audience and Activity From (Your Website). You can click on each category to see additional details and have a better idea of how your Pinterest efforts are paying off.

New features include three categories overflowing with data.

The bottom of the page features your five Top Pin Impressions from the past 30 days. At a glance you can see how many repins, clicks and likes these pins have and whether they are rich pins.

Below I’ll go through the main analytics categories and show you what you can find in each.

#1: Your Pinterest Profile

The Your Pinterest Profile category has four sections: Impressions, Repins, Clicks and All-Time. The Impressions section shows your top 50 pin impressions and your top 20 boards with top pin impressions.

If you click over to Repins, you can see your 50 most repinned items and which of your boards have the most repins.

The Clicks section is pretty much what you’d expect: A detail of your 50 most-clicked pins and your 20 boards with the most-clicked pins. You can also see the number of repins, impressions, clicks, likes and # of pins.

Impressions metrics are easy to find.

The All-Time section is particularly helpful. Here you’ll see your 50 most repinned pins, your pins with the highest search rank and power pins (pins with a high mix of clicks, repins and more). As you review this data, note which topics people are searching for and provide more of that content.

Don’t forget to repin your top pins to different boards or group boards. It’s a good way to get that content in front of new pinners who may not have seen it the first time around. Keep that momentum going!

#2: Your Audience

It’s not often that we get a free glimpse into how consumers self-select their interests, but that’s exactly what the new Pinterest Analytics tool is giving us in the Your Audience category. For the first time, Pinterest is sharing details about the users interacting with your pins.

The Your Audience category offers an important filter option. In the top right of the page you can choose to filter data by All Audiences or Your Followers. All Audiences highlights the entire audience of Pinterest, while Your Followers focuses on just your followers.

Viewing and comparing data from both are vital to understanding how your Pinterest performance measures up to your goals (and your audience’s needs).

Compare data from All Audiences and Your Followers to see the big picture.

You can use the All Audiences and Your Followers filters on both the Demographics and Interests tabs. The Demographics tab is easy enough—it shows you basic audience data, including location, language and gender.

You may find the Interests tab a bit, well, more interesting. If you want to find out what people are talking about or looking for, this is the place to be. Definitely look at how your All Audiences data overlaps or differs from the Your Followers data. By comparing them, you can home in on the topics your audience is searching for and create content to match.

As you compare the data, ask yourself these questions: Does your content match the interests of your typical pinners? Is your content reaching the intended target audience?

Keep an eye on how your competition is using Pinterest.

Another important new feature lets you see the other brands your followers are following. Knowing which business accounts are similar to yours is extremely important on Pinterest—it’s always good to keep an eye on the competition.

#3: Activity From (Your Website)

Encouraging people to pin articles and images from your website is a key element of Pinterest success. The Activity From (Your Website) category shows your website’s 50 top pins and 20 top boards and how their impressions, repins and clicks stack up.

You also have access to three other important stats: Original Pins, All-Time and Pin It button.

Original Pins shows you the 50 newest pins shared from your website. This is valuable because you can easily tell which topics are resonating with your audience (and create similar content for even more pins).

See how effective pins from your website are.

As with the Your Pinterest Profile category, the All-Time option gives you the top 50 pins that are most repinned, rank well in search and are power pins.

Click on the Pin It button link to see how many times your website’s Pin It button has been seen on your site’s pages, how many times it’s been clicked and most importantly, how many times someone has pinned from your website.

Options Each Analytics Category Offers

You’ll notice that the main categories have some option overlap. For example, all categories allow you to export data so you can use it in your own spreadsheet and create reports as needed.

Each of the pins listed within a category is clickable and takes you directly to that pin’s page. Listed pins also show a thumbnail of the specific image users pinned. You can use those popular pins as inspiration for your own images.

Another universal feature is the ability to see how people are accessing Pinterest(e.g., via the web or a mobile device) and filter your data based on that information.

Find out how your audience accesses Pinterest and optimize your content accordingly.

In the top right corner, click Apps to see a menu of different filter options and click the one you want. For example, if you only want to see analytics for users who access Pinterest via iPad, choose iPad to filter your data.

When you’ve determined how most of your audience accesses Pinterest, turn your attention to your images and optimize them to look great on the apps your audience prefers.

Finally, on each page you have a box called Here’s a Tip. These tips are customized based on Pinterest’s evaluation of your stats.

Pinterest gives you tips on how to improve your Pinterest stats.

I strongly encourage you to take advantage of Pinterest’s free advice so you can make the most of your Pinterest marketing efforts.

Sign up for the Pinterest Business Newsletter, Pinterest Business Blog and Success Stories for even more insider tips.

Wrapping Up

Whether you just need a quick high-level overview or want to delve into specific performance factors, you’ll find everything you need in the revamped Pinterest Analytics tool. Take advantage of every feature to discover what’s popular with your audience, how they’re repinning from your boards and what the competition is up to.

What do you think? Are you using Pinterest Analytics? Which feature has been most helpful? Please let us know in the comments below.

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Make Money using Facebook and Twitter

Do you enjoy using Facebook and Twitter?

Why not make money doing what you enjoy?

Learn the WEIRD trick that allowed this single Mother to climb out of debt and make over $700 per week helping businesses with their Facebook and Twitter accounts!

It is part of most people's everyday lives - you chat to your friends and you interact with people who also enjoy Facebook and Twitter.

So why not earn money while you do it?

If You Find It Hard To Believe, Check Out This Fox News Video Report On Social Media Managers

I’ll show you how to find hundreds of easy social media jobs that you can begin right away!

Plus I’ll show you how you can get businesses to give you their products for FREE to test as part of your social media manager duties!

Many businesses will send you free samples of their products and services as part of the job, to ensure that you know enough about their business. I’ll show you the secrets I’ve learnt to keep all of these products for free!

Here are some of the free items I’ve received in the past month!

- Sat Nav

- Tablet computer

- HD Camera

- Sunglasses

- Lots of smaller household products

And this was just last month!

Social Media Now A Part Of School Curriculum

OCR Includes Study Of Social Media In Sociology Course

Social media is to become a part of the school curriculum, following an announcement from the OCR Exam Board that it will take into account ‘how people are responding to the new rules of the digital global village.’ Students will now study and be tested on social media, online security and privacy, and the culture of selfies.

The decision applies to sixth form students studying Sociology for AS and A level, a combined number of around 80,000 students each year, and will take effect from September 2015.

Source: googleenterprise.blogspot.com

OCR is one of England’s largest exam boards, and this decision is sure to have an impact on the way in which the study of sociology is considered across not only different boards but beyond – 7,000 people graduate with a degree in Sociology from UK universities every year.

It is not just Sociology which will be affected. Those students who study Sociology for A level go on to a wide range of degree courses, and by including a discussion of social media at this relatively early stage such thinking is sure to inform disciplines like history, literature, and even more traditionally science-based subjects like psychology.

The course will look at traditional sociological concepts such as identity, power, and community through the lens of social media, bringing a modernity and immediacy to the subject which is seen by some to be lacking. OCR’s subject team manager, Victoria Hunter, said that the board has ‘brought [their] syllabus bang up to date with exciting new content that tackles some of the biggest issues facing societies today,’ and hopes that this move will reverse the trend of Sociology being seen by some as a ‘soft option’ for A-level students.

Source: learnforlifeenterprise.co.uk

The use of social media in the actual process of education has been acknowledged for some time, with students using services like Facebook and WhatsApp to communicate and co-ordinate projects and even to stay in touch with teachers outside school hours. Many courses, particularly at university level, take place wholly online, and so for students to have some grounding in not just the practicalities but the theory and history surrounding social media would be apt not only on an intellectual but also a practical level.

This may be where the difficulty will lie as far as the individual student is concerned. Separating one’s personal experience of social media from a detached intellectual analysis of it will not be instinctive, and it is perhaps this – the ability to distinguish between social media as an aspect of daily life and its place within a broader socio-historical context – which will be of the greatest long term benefit to students.

Use of social media inherently encourages critical thinking, as the famous ‘Facebook gap’ between people’s real lives and how they present themselves online becomes an established phenomenon, and the codifying of this in the educational establishment is an important step towards widespread recognition of this fact.

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Social Media Playing A Part In The Rising Complaints Against Doctors

Doctors Under Fire On Social Media?

A recent report commissioned by the General Medical Council has revealed that a rise in complaints against doctors reflects the role of social media and negative press coverage of the medical profession as a whole.

Source: blog.cureus.com

It comes after the revelation that complaints by the general public against GPs doubled between 2007 and 2012, and as a result, a research team from Plymouth was asked to investigate the dramatic increase.

The numerics are stated in the report, and it is identified that the number of complaints went from 5,168 in 2007 to 10,347 just five years later.

Despite the numeric details, the report did not point to any specific cause for the rise in complaints made by the general public. Instead, it rather ambitiously chose to identify a number of trends that it says have influenced the general public, and correlated these trends with the rise in complaints.

The report suggested that patients are now more aware of their own health, and therefore have much higher expectations of doctors. This attitude results in a shift in power relations between the two parties, andultimately removes doctors from the pedestal.

As well as this, the report said that social media had a role to play in the rise in complaints, as it encouraged people to discuss their previous experiences with the medical profession. This has been conducted in dedicated public forums and this ensured that specific information about health care could be shared easily and accessed by all.

The biggest influence on the general public is the negative press in the media, and this is also highlighted in the report.

Whilst the media coverage of high-profile medical cases may have had an influence on the rise in complaints, the report also suggested that this also gave rise to more complaints that were not relevant to the GMC, which regulates GPs in the United Kingdom.

Source: pando.com

The lead author of the report, Dr Julian Archer, said that the report had produced “some fascinating findings.” He said: “they show that the forces behind a rise in complaints against doctors are hugely complex and reflect a combination of increased public awareness, media influence, the role of social media technology and wider changes in society.”

He added that “the report also indicated that there is much to do to improve the wider complaint handling system, so that complaints made by the general public about their doctors are directed to the appropriate authorities.”

The research certainly brings up some interesting points, without outlaying hard evidence. Social media gets a hard time in the report, as these conversations about healthcare were happening long before the birth of social media, but they were conducted in private.

The more sinister reason for the rise in complaints is the negative media influence, and a possible government agenda to privatise the NHS.

The mass media will always have great control over the general public, so it comes to no surprise that with all the negative press that surrounds the medical profession, people have chosen to complain. It is a subtle form of indoctrination, and maybe by citing social media as a heavy influence on people’s negative connotations towards doctors, the researchers have been indoctrinated also.

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#OurABC: Channel in Social Media Rebranding

ABC latest channel to tap into the social media buzz and paves the way for TV future.

The Aussie branch of ABC is under-going a fresh rebranding operation in the hope to promote channel/audience inclusion and interactivity.

ABC's main channels, ABC1 is the channel facing the new changes, starting with the new name of ABC. While the new name isn't anything to write home about in terms of creativity, the rest of the rebranding operationpromises to make waves.

The use of the hashtag #ourABC is the main talking point and the vocal point for the rebranding campaign; a campaign that the broadcaster has labelled "bold, simple, raw and real."

guardian.com

The hope is that the new hashtag tagline will emphasise "inclusion, togetherness and connection"according to ABC's head of marketing and communications.

The channel's new image is also set to include new idents featuring everyday ABC personalities along with anew 'channel anthem' of 'Throw Your Arms Around Me' by Hunters and Collectors.

The rebranding coincides with their new look website which is set to launch on July 20th.

Speaking about the channel's new image, ABC's director of television, Richard Finlayson said that "Now more than ever, ABC Television needs to be relevant." 

With almost everyone sharing their thoughts and opinions online, it isn't hard to see the reasoning behindABC's new way of thinking. They are beginning to tap into where it's audience are coming from, and where they will go to express their opinions on the channels programming. It is a clever and innovative way of keeping up to date and relevant to their audience and it can't be too long before other channels across the world follow in ABC's footsteps.

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Social media a rendezvous for terrorists according to intelligence official

The Western world are now looking at social media in order to frighten its citizens, and keep them on guard. According to a top European intelligence official, terrorists have changed their management stye, and it is making them a more threatening prospect. In the past, decisions were left to be made by a top-down hierarchy, but now the decisions are being made by a collective “swarm,” and this has been aided by the power of social media.

Source: mashable.com

These are the words of Rob Bertholee, who is the head of Dutch Intelligence, and he further stated that up until recent years, jihadi groups operated through “vertical communication.”

“The leader spoke to his followers and then they would all do what he said,” Bertholee stated. He added thatthe rise of the Internet and social media have seen a rise in “horizontal communication” in these groups.

“So what we see now is what you could call a group dynamics, swarming, or the idea of swarming, where many individuals, without a visible leader, actually lead themselves and decide on themselves which way they go.”

“You know they all fly in a swarm, there’s no leader there. There’s nobody who says yeah we have a map and we have to go this way. But amazingly they all go the same way. That is what we see.”

Despite Mr Bertholee appearing to see “terrorists” as inferior to himself and his allies, by using language by degrading his fellow human beings, such as assuming that they only use a map when navigating, and expressing shock at the fact that there is no visible leader, he must take them seriously. Opposition to Western culture have become very competent in areas such as social media strategy, and technological advances.

The use of social media by opposition groups has bolstered fundraising and recruitment, and at the same time, has made life more difficult for figures such as Bertholee as they try and combat such groups both at home and abroad.

Source: spinsucks.com

“If you can single out a leader then you know where to attack, where to move, where to focus you attention to,” Bertholee said. “If you don’t have a leader, if you have a swarm that is self-guiding and self-deciding, it’s much harder to focus your attention, your efforts.”

These are fascinating words from Mr Bertholee, as he is merely acknowledging that people are using social media. This is the way the world works now; communication is made easy on a global level now, due to theimpact of social media on millions of people. Yes, there are people who want to cause distress and harm to others, but Mr Bertholee is another example of how people are being influenced by the media.

He uses animalistic comparatives and war rhetoric in order to make the reader believe that there is an army of insurgents coming to cause havoc on the lives of many. Whilst doing this, he paints a bad picture of social media, by asserting that networking is the biggest weapon for opposition groups, and if people take that in and choose to believe it, then social media as a whole will be viewed as a bad thing.

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