Socialnet Update

'Hot Selfie' Painting Displayed in Twitter Office

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 19:23:00 +0000

Selfie trends or activities to photograph themselves through the camera seems not to fade. Once lined up as the 'Word of the Year' in 2013, has now transformed into a selfie photo painting.

Most popular selfie photos are converted into the painting is nothing but a pose performed by comedian Ellen DeGeneres at the Oscar awards in early March 2014.

Once converted into a painting, it also poses Selfie display at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California, United States. In tweet posted by Twitter employee named Lauren Mitcheom, she exhibited the painting and invite Ellen stopped by Twitter headquarters to selfie with the employees there.

Ellen selfie poses is committed as the most popular in the world of Twitter. So no wonder if the employees were so adore microblogging selfie the work.

In the photo to the face of Ellen and invited guests other Oscar awards which is a well-known celebrities, such as Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Bradley Cooper, Peter Nyong'o Jr., Channing Tatum, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Jared Leto.

In a period of 3 minutes, the selfie tweet retweeted more than 80 thousand times. Then hit a record retweet at 10:40 AM and at 11:05 PM became the first tweet in retweets more than 1 million times. And on March 5, 2014, the number of retweets reach 3.25 million times.

Since the number of retweets the post, page BuzzFeed reported, Ellen contacted by the Twitter after Oscars telling her tweet that the activity could cause interference in the social media system was made by Jack Dorsey.

Why Avoid Getting Friends With Your Parents on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 26 Dec 2013 18:41:00 +0000

Do Your Chores

Adding your parents to your Facebook page almost always ends up being something you regret. It's social media, so you'll something stupid and they'll see it, or they'll say something totally embarassing and you'll never live it down!

I'm sure this girl really didn't appreciate being reminded about doing her chores by her Dad in front of all of her Facebook friends!

Taking Care of Business

Honestly, this would have been a pretty cool way to handle the situation, if only it had been in person or a private message and not on that poor kids Facebook wall for all his friends to see! I bet he never lived that one down.

Facebook = Google

It kind of makes you wonder how his Dad ever figured out how to log into Facebook in the first place. If Stephen didn't finally give him the address they could have been at it all night!

Pregnancy Scare

I predict this girl is going to give her Dad a heart attack one day...

Racist Dad

You somehow get the impression he wouldn't have been nearly as upset if the guy had been white. Thanks for announcing to all my friends that you're a racist, Dad!

Mom Burn

I think Jordan might need some ice for that monster burn his Mom just gave him!

Divorce Announcement

It seems like this announcement could have been done in private first. Even older people are beginning to rely a little too much on social media these days!

Worst Father Ever

I don't know what is worse, that he is talking about his daughter's butt or that he is talking about his daughter's butt before he even picked her up at the hospital!

50 Shades of Yuck

No Mum, I do not want to discuss bondage sex with you!

Mom Found It

No one is better qualified to embarass you more than good old Mom.

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noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 19:05:00 +0000

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noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 19:02:00 +0000

All the pictures, videos, games and articles shown on Socialnetupdate are the property of their respective owners.

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List of Most Popular Games on Facebook in 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 00:48:00 +0000

In addition to social media, Facebook also has gaming features that can make people addicted. Not surprisingly, the creation of Mark Zuckerberg has finally released the list of the most popular games throughout the year 2013.

Games included in this list are selected based on an assessment of the associated implementation users on Facebook and a growing number of gamers and overall game quality. In addition, for the category of favorite staff consists of some of the popular games on Facebook's office.

In the list, the game earned a "Game of the Year 2013" is a Criminal Case, which utilizes Facebook Open Graph API. The following is a complete list of the most popular names that exist on Facebook:

Latest Game Category :

1. Bake Shop Drop by Broken Bulb Studios [Match-3 game]
2. Farm Heroes Saga by King [Match-3 game]
3. Heart of Vegas by Product Madness/Aristocrat [Slots game]
4. Hit It Rich Casino Slots by Zynga [Slots game]
5. Jelly Splash by Wooga [Match-3 game]
6. Kitchen Scramble by Disney Interactive [Strategy/time management game]
7. Monster Legends by Social Point [Monster battles game]
8. The Smurfs & Co.: Spellbound by Ubisoft [Strategy/village building game]
9. Soldiers Inc. by Plarium [RTS game]
10. Solitaire Tales by Qublix [Cards game]
11. Thunder Run War of Clans by SpinPunch Games [RTS game]
12. Vikings Gone Wild by EveryDayiPlay [RTS game]

Facebook Staff Favorites Category :

1. DoubleU Casino by AFewGoodSoft [Cards game]
2. Game of Thrones Ascent by Disruptor Beam [RPG/simulation game]
3. King's Bounty: Legions by Nival [Turn-based strategy game]
4. Panda Jam by SGN [Matching game]
5. Wartune by 7Road/Proficient City [MMORPG]
6. War Commander by Kixeye [RTS game]

Next game that has the title of "Hall of Fame" or games that have been present before 2013, but remained popular in 2013 are as follows:

1. Candy Crush Saga by King [Match-3 game]
2. DoubleDown Casino by DoubleDown Interactive/IGT [Cards game]
3. FarmVille 2 by Zynga [Farm simulation game]
4. Slotomania by Playtika/Caesar’s Interactive [Slots game]

Facebook itself has started a trend showing games for users on the site since 2012. Now this year the list of games on the site have been included and users who have not tried these games can use these lists to spend free time.

Youtube Paid Services Ready Next Year

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 15:37:00 +0000

Youtube Music subscription services seem equally harmful will not be put into effect from this year. Meanwhile, Google 's own mind is negotiating with record labels regarding access to all services on Google Play Music.

Despite the clarity of the subscription service later see a bright spot since found a code snippet on Youtube app for Android that leads to Youtube Music subscription service, but it seems Youtube users do not expect too fast this time

According to a report from AllThingsD on Wednesday (04.12.13), I called wanted to launch a subscription service this year, but it does not seem to be realized. The report also asserted when Google is considering launching Youtube Music subscription services in Q1 2014. Apparently, until now Google itself has not met the way out how to combine the official music video with user-generated content.

Google also claimed to have obtained all necessary content as a condition of launching the service, and not the first time Google postpone launch Youtube Music subscription service, earlier also done the same thing last October.

Not to identification of exactly when Google will release the service, but speculation is growing calls before April 2014 Youtube Music subscription service possibilities can be enjoyed.

Line rushed into e-commerce sector with Line Mall application

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 13:08:00 +0000

Yesterday, Line, popular chat applications from Japan, announced they will prepare for the public launch of their e-commerce applications that will come (and eagerly awaited), namely Line Mall.

In a blog post on the Japanese language, the company is asking for e-commerce vendors that apply prospectively to join the application, which also will be used to validate each vendor and stuff.

Until now there has been no further details. But the post stating that the Line would like to provide products of the highest quality to its users, and describe the system in which the vendor will be rewarded for each successful transaction with points that can be exchanged for other goods .

What is the purpose of all this? Line Mall may not be as Craigslist would be no quality control, incentives on behavior, and social elements. In addition, there will be a teddy bear sticker too.

Line not tell the exact date of the launch of Line Mall. But they plan to run this service for the public in Japan in mid-December.

Last August, Line announced that they want to get into the e-commerce sector as part of an increased focus on engagement and monetization.

The company managed to earn income of USD192 million in the third quarter, up 48 percent from the previous quarter. Line also has 280 million registered users around the world, even though we do not yet know how many of those users are active.

Celebrate the 10th Anniversary, Microsoft Skype Work 3D Version

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:35:00 +0000

Today, August 29, exactly 10 years ago the presence of your own company Skype perbicangan. Recorded within 3 months after was launched, Skype has been downloaded by 1.5 million users worldwide. Skype was created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, and by the end of 2010 was used by 663 million people. This makes Microsoft interested and bought it in 2011 with a value of $ 8.5 billion.

In an interview with the BBC in touch with Skype 10 years, Mark Gillett, Corporate VP of Microsoft for Skype said that the team is working to create a 3D version of Skype that users will be able to retrieve and view images in 3D through a video call . But Gillett also adds Skype to build the 3D version takes a lot of adjustmenthardware .

Many innovations estimate 3D version of Skype will be well received when released, but it will not be much use because the issue of hardware and of course the user must have a lot of cameras. Below there is little Skype infographic from 2003.

Google Traffic Back Beat Yahoo in US

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:44:00 +0000

In the last week, comScore showed that the number of visitors to Yahoo in U.S. balanced with Google for the first time since 2011, but other researchers with an overview of his research interrupted more serious.

SimilarWeb who perform traffic analysis on the website in July, found that as many visitors as Google had 21.4 billion globally. While Yahoo had 6.8 billion visits, including 700 million to 100 million for Tumblr and Flickr. In the U.S., Google had 9.4 billion visits more than Yahoo in the whole world. Total visits to Yahoo in the U.S. as much as 2.4 billion, as reported by Mashable (26/08/2013).

The picture that comes after comScore data in July indicating that Yahoo had 196.6 million U.S. visitors compared with 192.3 million visitors Yahoo.

Visits and Visitors certainly a different matrix. Visitors can make a number of visits per month, the same as SimilarWeb statistics show. However, statistics are not the same as the page view, which calculates how many websites are seen in this period.

Daniel Buchuk, Head of brand and Startegy of SimilarWeb, thinking that the visit is a more accurate description for consumer Internet users. "ComScore really count if people visit YouTube once a month or 300 times a month," he said.

SimilarWeb is a unit of SimilarGroup based in Tel Aviv, according to figures collected data from consumers who face a browser plug-in. SimilarGroup received funding of 2.5 million dollars to strengthen SimilarWeb, because it saw as a rival Alexa web measurement tools.

The following graph.

YouTube Latest Update Comes with Three Great Features

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 08:27:00 +0000

Youtube do the big update on YouTube Mobile that allows users to browse other videos while watching videos, find and create playlists video, and there are features of queuing video on connected devices.

Google Update launched on Monday a YouTube app for Android, and continued with updates to other Mobile YouTube application in the future. As reported by CNET (08/19/2013) A Google spokesman said that the launch is very slow this was intentional and not due to leakage of the installer file or APK apps.

YouTube 5.0 for Android includes several features that can make applications like watching YouTube on the web and in some cases, beyond the experience of using the web.

Google confirmed the update for the YouTube application is expected to be present in the Play Store on Tuesday morning. While the YouTube app for iOS is also expected to be immediately updated . In the update there is a new a new logo design, video display forms with new styles, and three new major features.

Now you can scroll to the bottom when watching a video while doing browsing on other videos. This will minimize the video to the bottom right corner, when the main video display on- browsing screen to eat the rest. And when the video back up video will be shifted back to its original size. When the video is shifted to the right or left, the video will be closed.

Other major new features is that you can browse and play videos that exist on the playlist in the app.

Video queuing now available on connected devices that use the Cast , like new Chromecast, Google TV and a PlayStation 3. When do streaming video on a device connected to the Cast , you will be able to browse and play videos that have been or are lining up to watch next.

Develop Instagram, Facebook Appoints New Director

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 18:32:00 +0000

Facebook seems not too comfortable with the progress being made by Instagram to date. The proof, Facebook has just sent one of its flagship developer to develop media-sharing applications that acquired the last April 2012. It is mentioned as an effort to "build a few things to make it better".

According to news released by TechCrunch on Wednesday (08.14.13), Facebook pointed to Peter Deng served as Director of Product at Instagram. But on one occasion, Deng asserted that he did not want to make a significant change in body Instagram. Deng just want to be a supporter of Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.

"I did not come to change things," said the creator of Facebook Chat, Groups, and Facebook Messenger in the last six years of his career. "Kevin and Mike have made things better. Now, how we can go faster and build a variety of products that are more beautiful? That was my goal coming. "

Now, Instagram has been prepared to actually go ahead and compete with the developers of media-sharing applications. After the previous successful release of Instagram Video that can be called as one of the main challengers Vine, Instagram has now started targeting the other market share. Deng is credited background makes various products for Facebook, Instagram seems to be very profitable in the future.

Google's Gift To Indonesia

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 19:05:00 +0000

Independence Day of the Republic of Indonesia, the 68th received a response by the parties to participate in Google.inc enliven historic day for the people of Indonesia. Google gives gifts of Google appearance on August 17, 2013 with the theme of Indonesia's independence day. Indonesian people responded positively and air thanks to Google.

Google faces the issue of independence of the Republic of Indonesia can be accessed only from today until 23:49 pm. Emergence in 00.00 to make the bloggers in Indonesia seemed surprised by Google's gift. They flocked to the Google display screen shots to preserve it.

Not just today but in the years before-before Google also frequently makes her special gift in the form of a special edition look Indonesian independence day on August 17. Google's own party seems to be very proud of Indonesia that they would publish a special edition to Indonesia.

This view looks at the front page of google.com and google.co.id alone. For this look google.co.uk and others do not look or zoom like Google generally. In Google Image zoom does not change the look of Google in general.

Let us capture the look of Google in 2013, the 17th Agusttus by pressing Print Screen and paste in Paint.After that store well in the photo folder which we usually keep memorable photographs with family or our friends.

Yahoo Adds One More Startup At Shopping Cart

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 21:04:00 +0000

E-commerce companies Lexity announced on Wednesday that it had been acquired by the giant technology company, Yahoo, as reported by CNET (31/07/2013). Lexity built four years ago by a former director of product management for Yahoo, Amit kumar. The startup called himself a " One-stop-shop of e-commerce services ".

Lexity all products, services and initiatives will make the transition smoothly and get better, faster and stronger.Lexity appears with the App Store and has a marketing application that aims to encourage the sale of outlets.

Lexity has tens of thousands of customers in 114 countries around the world. From the announcement on his blog, all applications including applications flagship Lexity Lexity Live , will continue to run and will put more resources to build these applications better.

"Lexity will also continue to support the outlets of all e-commerce platform, like BigCommerce, Magento, Shopify," said Amit Kumar. We will also continue to support and enhance the shopping centers. "

The last few months Yahoo has also acquired a lot of startup. Tumblr became the most talked about sites, the acquisition value of U.S. $ 1.1 billion in May, including news reading app Summly, service tele-conferencingRondee, GhostBird iOS camera apps, apps storytelling Qwiki, and e-mail address book startup Xobni.

But until now, it is unclear how much Yahoo paid for Lexity.

5 Ways Social Media Can Ruin Your Reputation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 06:59:00 +0000

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ allow us to connect with the players in our market. But, when used improperly, social media can be a dangerous platform for entrepreneurs to ruin their reputations.

Here are five ways social media users can destroy their online rep, and tips for steering clear of these costly mistakes:

1. Boring posts. A boring post is anything that lacks your unique personality or perspective. Giving a fresh perspective on an old topic or going against the status quo is what gets noticed.

So ask yourself how you can infuse your own character or sense of humor within each post. This is the essence of branding. The last thing you want to be is forgettable.

2. Disrespecting others. Social media is not the place to work out your problems with people. It's no different than yelling insults at someone in public or raising your voice at a retail store employee. Yes it gets peoples' attention, but that's not the kind of attention you want.

Unfortunately, the higher you climb in social media, the more people will want to throw stones at you. But don't retaliate publicly. Simply delete the negative comment, block the person and then decide if you want to address the issue privately, or just move on.

3. Failing to promote others. When it comes to building your business and developing a powerful network, you'll want to develop a reputation as someone who highlights others. Not only does this give credit where credit is due, it also communicates that you're secure with your success and have the ability to promote others in your industry.

Some effective ways to highlight others:

When someone gives you a great piece of advice, post it on Facebook or Twitter and tag that person.
Utilize the Endorsements feature on LinkedIn and begin endorsing people within your network.

4. Not replying to comments. Not replying to comments on your blog or over social media is no different than starting a conversation with someone and then ignoring their response. Actively monitoring comments and questions on every post can be time consuming, but even posting one follow-up comment per post can show you care and that you're engaged.

5. Being tagged in questionable photos. Most everyone has been captured in a photo that should be titled, "This is not how it looks." As funny as some photos can be, think twice about allowing yourself to be tagged in questionable photos. As a business owner, be mindful of how you want to be perceived publicly. Untag or delete yourself from any inappropriate photos.

Your best ally in creating an image that attracts the right kind of people and attention is to simply use common sense, which usually not so common. As long as you're consistently infusing your unique style and communicating with the same class that you would in public, you'll do just fine.
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Companies Should Stay Away From Social Media, Why?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 09:19:00 +0000

Being active in a fair number of social media outlets and marketing a new B2B social content platform with online content, confronted me with a number of arguments on why some companies choose to miss out on social media. These arguments, at first, made me speechless. After some thinking about these perspectives I am still sort of speechless, nonetheless, here is my response:

1. Social media is great, but not for my industry.

Time and again I stumble upon questions and comments like this one. I hear these doubts in many different industries and am surprised that people can still arrive at this conclusion.

Assuming that an industry does not exist online just shows that you do not understand the whole concept of social media: it is about connecting to people. While some companies refuse to acknowledge the vast opportunities social media, you can be sure their employees won’t.

Considering the fact that Facebook now has some 800 million users worldwide, you can be fairly certain that at least a small percentage of people from your industry will exist within this – or other social networks. Unless your target group is lacking Internet connection (say, are Mount Sherpa’s in the Himalayas), you can bet that they can be accessed through social media.

Hop on the train and start connecting to PEOPLE, without limiting yourself to a narrow-minded focus on industries.

2. I do not have the right content for social media.

At least you got one thing right: you need strong content for your social media strategy. What you may actually be saying is that you do not want to think about what type of content will resonate with your desired readers, who can help you create this content, and how it is going to be placed in various outlets.

There are exactly two groups of people who can best tell the story about your company, what you do, how well you do it and what makes you stand out in a personal way: your employees and your customers. If you are afraid to give these two a voice, than you should sincerely question your management (and stay out of social media).

You, your employees and your customers have information to give and stories to tell – it is exactly what these people have to say that will get future clients interested in the services and products you provide.

3. We do not have the capacity/manpower/money for social media.

You have it half right: social media marketing and management are not free. It takes manpower, persistence and continuity to build social media visibility from scratch.

Most likely, your employees are not just chatting away their working hours in social media. Instead, they find information and connections, they provide you with an audience and visibility, and they talk about the company. They will probably use social media anyway, no matter how hard you try to keep them out. Why not give them some sensible guidelines for how to help you pursue social media and have your employees aid your social media campaigns.

If you have a great team, let them talk about your company online. Their effort too, can begin within the frame of time it would take to drink a cup of coffee or daydream.

Don’t get me wrong: it is worth the investment to hire someone who can manage and steer your social media ship. But remember to also utilize your crew.

Here is an example of an open social media strategy, allowing every employee some time in the net, to start discussion groups, try Google+-hangouts, create Twitter-lists, and so on – you do not think this works? Have a look at this Life Case Story of a company sending their employees into social media.

If you do not trust your employees to talk in a positive way about your company or to be able to represent your company online, you may want to rethink your recruitment process.

4. Social media marketing is just a passing hype.

This argument has actually shocked me most. In the nineties (yes, I am that old), I heard people say this crazy thing called “The Internet” was going to be over in a few years. Look at it now.

Can you really and truly believe that social media and web 2.0 is just a passing phase?

Here is what I predict: there may be a time when Facebook is history or when LinkedIn has reached its grave – there is certainly the possibility that something better, more interesting and more efficient will arise. This does not mean social media will be dead. This will be an indication that social media has not vanished, but that it has developed and blossomed.

Do you want to be left collecting the crumbs others have left you while they explore current and future opportunities?

5. My clients and business partners do not want to communicate professionally within social media.

No one wants to have promotions and advertisements shouted at us all the time – regardless of whether we are talking about a social network or real life. But…

…if we are interested in a particular subject or industry that relates to our profession, we do not leave our professional interest behind when using social media. Professional and private lives tend to naturally intermingle as we have colleagues as friends and share interests with acquaintances. We will accept a fair amount of professional information intruding into our private life.

Do not shout or overly promote and people will happily communicate with you. As your company is part of you as a person, with every bit of information, communication and interaction you get your company into social media.

6. My clients and I are too old to use computer gaming, chatting and tweeting.

Hey, even my grandmother used the Internet to search for information when she was in her nineties.

Do you really think you will NOT find a fair amount of people from your target group looking for information online? Internet and social media usage spans across a wide range of ages and demographics. If you make your information available and produce an effort to communicate, your activity will follow.

The reality is that your potential customers, clients and business partners are already engaged in the game. Don’t let your equally as ripened competitors take the cake.

7. We tried Facebook for a few weeks but the response was low.

Apart from the fact that I personally do not think that Facebook is the best place or role model for B2B networking and social media – all social media activities take time to build a following, inspire trust and create reach. It’s only when you allow a strategy enough time to produce meaningful results and are active over a longer period that you will notice improvement (and success).

As in real life – trust and reputation need time to build before you can harvest the crop.

Many businesses and professional people stop their social media activity long before they really understand its processes. They have not allowed time to figure out the right outlets and the right content for the right target audience. Thus, they have not yet built a considerable following.

Do not be the one to give up too early. When doubts about your strategy arise (and they will) – do your research and ask someone who knows more than you do.

8. We built our offline reputation for years – we do not intend to ruin it by posting ludicrous pictures online.

If you already have a reputation offline – great! Use it as a start and connect to people online who already know your offline activities. You already have a head start – and will find building an online reputation much easier.

In such case, there is a great opportunity to learn from your experience in building a reputation offline, to figure out how to build a reputation online. Many processes and concepts are similar, and often offline content can be reused in social media. People who already trust you in “real” life will help you generate a larger audience online, simply by sharing your content and communicating with you online.

Once you have gotten your offline networking, branding and reputation building right offline, it’s not such a stretch to transfer your knowledge online.

Conclusion:

Do not use lukewarm excuses to miss out on the vast opportunities of social media for your business. It is worth learning and pursuing.

It is easy to be intimidated by something with which you are not yet familiar. Resist this temptation.

Rest assured that all of the business professionals who have experienced desired levels of success, have probably started out with just the same doubts and missteps, trials and errors. Give it time, but start now.

This Article was originally published on exploreB2B.

Measure Social Media Marketing Using Google Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 17:33:00 +0000

With 57% of adults in the UK having joined a social network, online companies have begun to capitalise on this, realising the importance of social media as a marketing tool. As more and more firms set up their company pages, it is not enough to simply have a social media presence; instead, these profiles must be maintained and monitored on a regular basis. This in itself has become a subject of much discussion, with many highlighting the difficulties of measuring the success of this approach. One way around the problem is through the use of Google Analytics. As one of the most treasured applications throughout the online marketing world, Google Analytics provides helpful statistics that can also be used for social media platforms. Here’s how:

One of the most obvious, but also most useful, ways Google Analytics can help drive forward your campaign is through traffic data. Through the Social Sources page it is possible to see quickly and clearly how many visitors are being driven towards your site from which networks. Based on this information, you can then make decisions on which sites to focus your efforts on, and which to abandon.

It may even be worth delving into this further. Using this same tool, you can also discover which of your individual pages are best promoted by which network. For example, Facebook may be particularly effective for bringing visitors to your product pages, whilst Twitter may be more beneficial for directing traffic to your home page. These facts will help you decide which links to include within which platform, making your social media marketing campaign more effective as well as saving you time in the long run.

The conversions report is another key area of Google analytics which should not be overlooked. This allows you to actually establish if your social media campaign is achieving the goals it was set up to reach. To get the best results here, it is best to set up a set of aims as early on as possible. These aims do not have to be sales or leads, but can be smaller or more customised achievements, such as filling out a form, or subscribing to a newsletter. This is ultimately the most effective way to see how your strategy is working and make alterations as and when needed.

Using Google Analytics is a vital step in moving away from more basic and superficial ways of gauging social media success, such as your number of likes and followers, towards a much more relevant way of assessing its worth, and should be considered by anyone setting up a digital marketing campaign.

SEO Positive offer bespoke SEO, PPC account managing , social media marketing and website design services.

Swarm.fm Apps Sync Facebook and Sportify for Your Fave Music

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 04:20:00 +0000

Swarm.fm is a unique application that sync Facebook and Sportify for you to search favorite music recommendations.

Swarm.fm is a new app for music streaming service Spotify. The app won first prize at Spotify’s Music Apps Hack Weekend back in February, and has now been integrated into the Spotify software. Swarm.fm is the brain-child of Peter Watts, the same developer responsible for +Music, a music extension for Facebook. +Music was the primary method of listening to music on Facebook, before the social networking site partnered with other services, including Spotify.

Speaking at the hacking event earlier this year, Watts explained:

“Swarm augments your music collection with activity from your friends (liking bands, listening, posting songs) and activity from artists you like (new releases, status updates), to keep you up to date with your ‘music universe.’ It also find similarities between friends and can generate playlists based on artists, interests and brands you have in common.”

Once installed, Swarm.fm runs inside Spotify. When on screen, you can open up information about any of the artists in your Spotify library. Available information includes which individual tracks you have, the artist’s discography, and which of their tracks are available to stream through Spotify. You can also read a biography, and connect with Facebook to find out which of your friends have been listening to the same artist.

So far, so good. One of Swarm.fm’s reigning features, however, is its ability to direct you to new music based on what you’re already listening. It does this in two different ways: by genre, and by similar artists.

When you view an artist’s biography, you can see which genres they are “tagged” with. Clicking on these tags takes you to a list of artists who share the same tag. There, you can view artists by similarity, popularity, and ‘trending’ (i.e. emerging artists). You can also view other artists in your collection that match this tag.

Clicking on the “Similar” tab in the artist’s profile page brings up a list of similar artists that you might enjoy.

Once you’ve connected with Facebook friends, you can find out what they’re listening to through Swarm.fm, even if they don’t have a Spotify or Swarm account themselves. And if you connect to a friend whose music taste turns out to be less than palatable, simply mute them, without having to disconnect.

That’s already quite a lot of features, but Swarm.fm doesn’t stop there. You can also view brand new releases, filtering the results to only include new releases from artists already in your Spotify library, or the most popular. In addition to finding new music, you can use the app to manage your current library. Search for music or artists, display artists of certain genres, or display artists from a certain year.

Swarm.fm provides a comprehensive service that goes above and beyond what most music managers give. If you’re a regular Spotify user and want to give the music streaming service extra functionality, Swarm.fm is a great way to bring everything together and view your music library, friends’ soundtracks, and new recommendations all in one place.

Find out more about Swarm.fm by viewing the video below :

Source

Make Schedule for Your Facebook Status

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:39:00 +0000

Are you a busy person but do not want to miss making status? Can you use a little Facebook automation. The step here.

Many users are cheered up with this feature because Facebook's EdgeRank algorithm made using third-party tools like HootSuite or SocialOomph for scheduling your posts desirable less than manually posting.

Now let's learn more about the advantages of using Facebook scheduled posts. First we will tell you the steps to schedule your status and edit them.

#1: How to Schedule Your Posts Scheduling is easy—just follow these steps:

Write your post as you normally would. You can attach photos, add links, add YouTube videos, add tags to other pages and events or just include regular text.
Type your post as you would normally.

In the lower-left corner of your post, click on the clock symbol as shown in the screenshot above. You can now add the year, month, day and time you want the post to go out.

Add the date and time you want your post go out.

Notice that you can also backdate your posts to supplement your Timeline if you wish (more on that later).
You can schedule your post up to 6 months in the future (more months are shown, but if you select more than 6 months out, Facebook won’t accept it). You can schedule the minutes at 00-, 10-, 20-, 30-, 40- or 50-minute marks of the hour. So if you need a post to go out specifically at 2:15 pm, you cannot set it.

You can also add language and location targeting in your scheduled posts, just like you can in your regular posts. Just click on the Public icon and make the necessary adjustments.

Once you have everything set, just click the blue Schedule button. Voilà! Now just remember to circle back to your posts later after the scheduled time to watch for follow-up comments!

#2: How to Find and Edit Your Scheduled Posts

To see what you have scheduled and make any changes, just go to your activity log by accessing the admin panel at the top of your page (if you don’t see the admin panel, click the red admin panel button in the upper-right corner), then click Edit Page, and Activity Log. You then see all of your scheduled posts.

Use the activity log to find your scheduled posts.

View your scheduled posts.

If you need to edit your scheduled post, the only thing you can change from here is the time, unfortunately. To edit the text, you must cancel the post and redo your scheduling. To cancel or change the time, mouse over the upper-right corner of the post in the activity log.

You can only change the time or cancel the post and start over.

#3: You Can’t Schedule Everything

You can schedule links, photos, status updates and videos (although I found scheduling a video to be a bit buggy). You can also schedule a YouTube video link, which will attach as it normally does in your posts.

You can schedule a photo.

You can’t schedule some of the other types of posts as you can normally do from the publisher, such as photo albums, posting of events, questions, offers and milestones.

#4: You Can Backdate Your Posts

You can schedule things in the past. I’m not sure why you would want to use the backdating feature other than to fill out your Timeline a bit. But if you have a significant event that you want to post about in the past, I recommend a milestone post instead.

The interesting thing about backdating is that the post does go out into people’s news feed immediately and then is shown at the appropriate place on your Timeline.

The backdated post goes out immediately into the news feed with a note about when it was added into the Timeline.

#5: Scheduled Posts Won’t be Automatically Tweeted

If you have linked your Twitter account to your Facebook page by setting up www.Facebook.com/Twitter so that everything you post on Facebook gets tweeted (yes, we know that it’s not always a great idea but sometimes it isn’t terrible), be aware that your scheduled posts won’t go out to Twitter.

So if you rely on your Facebook page to supplement your tweets and you move to more scheduled posts, you will have to schedule your tweets with a different tool.

#6: Scheduling Posts Can Bring about More Engagement

What can you expect when you schedule posts? It depends on your baseline right now with your Facebook page—how often you are posting, how engaged your audience is, what you are posting and other factors.
One thing that scheduling can do for you is allow you to post more regularly and increase your posting without spending all day on your Facebook page.

Randi Thompson of How to Market Your Horse Business (and an active member of our Social Networking Clubs) tried an experiment where she upped the number of posts by using scheduled posts on two of her pages.

On her How to Market Your Horse Business page, she went from posting 3 times a day to posting every 3 hours and 5 times a day. Then she had another page, Horse and Rider Awareness, where she was not posting regularly at all. She tried scheduling 3 quality posts per day. Here are her results over a 5-day period.

Using Scheduled posts to increase post frequency helped increase engagement.

Now of course this is not a comprehensive study. And this could be done without scheduling posts. But the point is that scheduled posts can make things easier for you so you can batch your work, know that things are being posted at the times you want and you can get on with other parts of your business. I encourage you to try some experiments with scheduled posts on your page and see how things work for you.

And again, make sure you circle back to these posts to follow up on comments!

#7: Scheduled Posts are not Identified or “Punished” in Facebook

When you post from a different scheduling tool such as HootSuite or BufferApp, people can see that you’re posting through a different tool. But Facebook’s scheduled posts are seamless.

The posting tool appears under the post.

Using a different tool to post to Facebook is not all bad. Sometimes it’s much better to save yourself a little time and get the post out with the tool you’re using rather than not post at all.

But Facebook has been known to show posts using third-party tools a little less in the news feed or collapse them. As of this writing, I believe third-party tools are faring well in Facebook. But we all know how Facebook changes.

#8: Scheduled Posts May be Coming to Personal Profiles

The option does appear to schedule a Facebook post on personal profiles, which may be a good thing for people who are using their personal profiles to talk about business. But as of this writing, I could not schedule anything into the future, only for today or in the past.

Not everyone will see big changes by scheduling posts. You still have to deliver engaging Facebook content. But what scheduled posts can do is free up some of your time by allowing you to batch your social media posts into blocks and give you more time to focus on your business.

What are your thoughts? Have you been using scheduled posts? What results have you seen? Tell us in the comments section below!

Source

5 Simple Things to Improve your Social Media (while eating pie)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:20:00 +0000

You can accomplish a lot in an hour. Allow me to make a few suggestions.

•Bake a pie
•Watch an episode of 'Grey's Anatomy'
•Do 5 simple yet important things to improve your social media (while eating pie).

That last one seems like it would take a lot longer than an hour, but most of the apprehension over digging into social media comes from the belief that you don't have time for it. You do.

Here are 5 things you can do now to make social media more useful and enjoyable to you and your followers.

FACEBOOK: Create or subscribe to an interest list.

Think of an interest list as a shareable personalized news feed with content pertaining to a specific subject or group of subjects, one you can control whenever and however you want. Your regular news feed is jammed full of stuff your friends are doing and sometimes it's TMI. Interest lists allow you to choose a topic — say news — and subscribe to the pages or people you care about most.

It takes about 60 seconds to create a list, but if you are short on time, just type in a topic, hit subscribe and you're done. To get started, go to the main Facebook page (not your Timeline) and look toward the bottom of the left rail for the area titled "interests." Interest lists were introduced in March, and it might be Facebook's most overlooked feature.

INSTAGRAM: Upload your first photo or interact with someone.

There's a reason Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion: It's popular. If you have an iPhone or Android device, you need to introduce yourself to Instagram. You'll hear people talking about adding filters to photos. That's only part of what Instagram does. The power of the platform lies in the community of people that want to share what they are seeing around them. The first time you follow someone from Japan and they upload a shot of their commute to work, it's pretty awesome. You feel like you're right there.

PINTEREST: Score an invite, pin and be hooked

If this column has any fine print, it's this: It's easy to get started on Pinterest, but once you do it's very addictive. Request an invite at pinterest.com or ask a friend, search for one thing you like and repin it to the board you just created. Then let me know what you think.

GETGLUE: Social media meets TV.

GetGlue is a social network for entertainment — TV shows, movies, books, music and more. So before you watch a show, like "Grey's Anatomy," check in on GetGlue. You can earn stickers, discounts and other rewards. Your whole life is social, and now watching a show alone in your pajamas with a pint of ice cream in your lap is too. You're welcome.

ANY PLATFORM: Check your privacy settings

They aren't really confusing, there are just a lot of them. And because they tend to change often, it's always a good idea to jump in and make sure nothing is awry. Start on Facebook by clicking on that arrow in the upper right corner and selecting privacy settings. What you see might surprise you.

That's it. Those 5 things will expand your social media repertoire, and I promise they won't take up much time at all.

President Obama adds Pinterest to his social networks

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:14:00 +0000

How many people know the recipe for President Barack Obama's family chili? Before today, probably not many. But now anyone on the social-networking site Pinterest can find out how many onions, ground beef, and kidney beans the recipe takes, and then pin it to their own profile if they like.

Obama has added the popular virtual pinboard site Pinterest to his social-networking trove and today his filled-out profile page with eight boards and 44 pins was made public. According to tech news site Mashable, the Obama campaign set up the account a few weeks ago, but there wasn't any activity until today.

Besides a board titled "Obama-inspired recipes," there are boards named "Pet Lovers for Obama" with photos of the presidential dog Bo, "Just the Facts" that explains some of the president's policy points such as health care reform, and a couple photo albums that show Obama on the road and with his family. At the time of this writing, he has 3038 followers and counting.

Obama is a dedicated social-networking buff; in addition to Pinterest, he has accounts with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Google+, and Myspace. However, as his Pinterest profile says, "This page is run by Obama for America, President Obama's 2012 campaign."

What this means is that the president's social-networking accounts are run by his campaign staffers and once in a while he will pop in with cameo updates. For example, on Obama's Twitter account, his staff regularly tweets on his behalf and anything written by him includes the word "bo."

According to The Washington Post, none of the Republican candidates have signed up for Pinterest yet. However, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's wife -- Ann Romney -- did debut her own page last month with seven boards, including "Things I Love," "Patriotic," and "Books Worth Reading."

Social Media And Your Job Search

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:13:00 +0000

Some employers are asking potential job candidates to provide login and password information for social network sites. The companies are then scouring the social sites for any information that might affect their hiring decision. Others are simply searching the sites for any information they can access.

Is it legal for a company to ask for your username and password? News 2 discovered it's a gray area.

"Our laws just have not caught up with the technology age. We're still having the court system trying to decide how far we go with the freedom of speech and other types of issues," Attorney Karen McKeithen Schaede said.

Even though we're talking about new technology, old laws still apply. For example, the Civil Rights Act says discriminating based on race, color, religion, s*x or national origin is illegal.

Schaede said, "Employers need to be aware when they're asking for this information, they're also opening themselves up to possible future litigation. They have to be cautious of what they're asking candidates to do."

If you want to be a Winston-Salem or Greensboro Police Officer, investigators will look at your Facebook and Twitter pages.

Assistant Greensboro Police Chief Anita Holder told me officers understand they must give up some of their own rights to protect the rights of others. As part of the application process, the department asks you to log on and scroll through your social networks.

"Because of the background process and the thoroughness of it, they know that we have to check every piece of information that we can. Checking their social sites is sort of the equivalent of things we would have done twenty years ago by calling friends and neighbors," Holder said.

Colleges and Universities are also monitoring social networks. At UNCG, some coaches require players to "friend" them on Facebook. The level of monitoring depends on the coach and sport.

News 2 asked Schaede what you can do to protect yourself. She said, "Don't post anything online that wouldn't feel comfortable seeing in court."

How to Use Social Networks for Rankings in a Roundabout Way

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:51:00 +0000

Social media optimization is never straightforward. That’s the whole point. You are trying to get your core audience to do your ranking work for you – rather than paying link farms to stuff your site full of inbound links from heaven knows where, you get genuine, solid referrals from actual humans, plus loads of chatter in the social media streams.

The rules haven’t changed – the more content you have out there the more you get indexed; and the more you get indexed the more frequently you hit those coveted top spots. No, it’s the method by which we get there that has altered so drastically. So here’s my short crib guide to getting ahead in social networking:

1: Who Let the Blogs Out?

Blogging is the core content in social media streams. A blog is where you get to express yourself, provide links of your own to other interesting content and deliver information that enhances your customer’s experience of the products you sell and the services you provide. Tweets are great for analysis but unless they go viral they aren’t so great for raising your profile in the right social spheres.

The key thing to remember about blogging is this: people don’t really like it when companies or corporations blog at them. For a while there, we were all convinced that simply entering the blogosphere as “OurCompany” and spamming everyone with a load of corporate sales messages would be good enough. And we found out that it wasn’t.

Quite right too. If we’re going to work the social circles to get more exposure for our brands, let’s at least realize that we have some proper work to do before we get our rewards. The social stream is not like the internet we used to know. It requires genuine engagement, action, reaction and interaction. Otherwise we fail.

2: Give it Away Now

Businesses have to learn to give stuff away for free if they want to get ahead in the social media universe. The internet is all about free stuff – so if you’re not prepared to toe the line then be prepared to get out of the kitchen. Give away resources, links, mentions of other people and thanks to members of your social circle. The more generous you are with other people’s reputations, the better you will be received. An example: I have recently been blogging on behalf of a building company that got such glowing mentions for its work in the social stream of a heated skirting board manufacturer, that it switched all of its supply to the skirting boards in question.

3: Keep an Open Door

Social media is about exclusivity, sure, but it is also about openness. If you are not open to receiving connection from other people in your social circle, then you will rapidly fall out of the picture. You can see this simply by looking at someone’s Facebook activity. A person who uses Facebook every day is bombarded with conversations and links. A person who does not, isn’t – even though they are in the same social circle.

4: Make a Comment Every Day

And that’s a bare minimum. Comments are your calling cards, the things you leave behind to remind everyone else in your social network that you are around. The more positive, relevant and engaging your comments are the better. Do not use comments to plug your brand or product. Someone else’s conversation is their own. You comment to support them and add something valuable to the discourse. Plugging yourself in someone else’s conversation or in a comment is like responding to an update that your best friend is getting married, by inviting everyone to your birthday party. Unforgivable, in other words – and be advised, the social media stream doesn’t forget half as easily as your best friend.

Social media is a whole new world for rankings. You need to unlearn half of what you know and keep hold of the rest – but use it in a different fashion. At least it’s intuitive! And if you do it regularly and well, it is extremely fruitful.

Top 2012 Social Media Resolutions: Share Less, With Fewer People

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:02:00 +0000

Did 2011 mark the high point of oversharing? That seems to be the lesson behind a couple of studies that examined the New Year’s resolutions of social media users.

Most of us, it seems, did make social media resolutions of some sort. In a Harris Interactive survey of 2,000 Americans who use services such as Facebook and Twitter, 63% of respondents said they had made promises to themselves regarding their use of such services in 2012. The survey was commissioned by social network Posterous.

Surprisingly few of those resolutions had anything to do with spending less time on those services. Only a quarter of respondents with a social media resolution checked the box marked “take a break from social media and spend more time interacting with people in real life.” Rather, most users wanted to better control how much they share, and with whom.

The top two promises, chosen by 44% and 42% of resolution-makers respectively, were “share only with close friends and family” and “be more careful about what I share.”

The desire for less sharing was evident on the incoming side, too. The third most popular resolution, shared by 37% of respondents: “Only read status updates from people who are close friends and family.”

Sharing less on social media may not be the most popular New Year’s resolution overall — it’s hard to beat mainstays like “lose weight” or “save more money.” But a separate study, an analysis of more than 152,000 tweets about New Years’ resolutions by Crimson Hexagon, suggests that the social media diet resolution has reached the top tier.

Leaving aside the 20% of tweets that simply said New Year’s resolutions were “lame,” the resolution to “share less on social media” was the third most popular — beating “be kinder to others.”

It’s easy to surmise that we all shared too much last year — that one too many drunken photo got posted, or that an ill-considered joke on your Facebook wall led to a dicey conversation with the boss. But perhaps there’s another lesson to be drawn here: that we’re hungry for a more meaningful, more intimate form of social media.

Most users know the feeling: that Twitter’s connections are too impersonal, that the majority of our Facebook friends are one-time acquaintances we’d rather not spill everything to. On the surface, that’s good news for services like Posterous and Path, which make a virtue of their limited social circles. (It’s also a boon for Google+, which touts its ability to divide your friends into various circles of sharing — though critics complain the Circles feature is still too complex for the average user.)

On the other hand, the resolution to share less — or to only share with family and close friends — doesn’t necessarily suggest we’re ready to give up on the twin behemoths of Twitter and Facebook just yet. After all, “switch my social network” was not a resolution that ranked in the Harris survey. Most of our world is on these big two services, and we recognize that. We would just like to be more careful about what we post there, and to whom.

Did you make a social media resolution for 2012? Let us know what it was in the comments.

Google Plus vs. Facebook – Where things stand

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:29:00 +0000

Following the launch of Google+, many social media marketers have started to compare and contrast the benefits of the new social media platform for brand marketing activity with the benefits of Facebook.

Facebook has long been the social network of choice for the vast majority of brands operating within social media, but Google+ is continuing to grow and brands are starting to take note.

Google+ looks to have around 60 million users so far, a far cry from Facebook’s 800 million+. So clearly Facebook wins when it comes to the size of the network and will for some time.

But what about the feature set? Who wins when we look at what marketers have access to on each network?

I’ve outlined below the most relevant elements of Facebook and Google+ at present, along with a few conclusions as to which social network comes out on top.

1. Advertising

Facebook is currently the only social network of the two that offers advertising, although Google+ is not far away. Official comment from Google is that adverts will be coming to Google+ soon, so although this is a clear win for Facebook at present, the power of Google’s existing advertising platform may tip the balance a little further down the line.

Winner: Facebook, for now.

2. Posting/interactions

Since Google+ is relatively new to the social network scene, Facebook has had much longer to hone its posting elements. Having raised the character limit for posts and added the questions functionality, Facebook is winning this battle at present, but Google+ may have some tricks up its sleeve, particularly when it comes to its hangout functionality.

Winner: Facebook

3. Applications and tools

At present, the only applications and tools that exist on Google+ are games and other browser plug-ins that serve to enhance users’ experience on the network, all of which are developed by third parties. Facebook has established its own developer community and Facebook applications are a common characteristic of the majority of major brand pages, but the developer community is likely to be eager to be given license to create apps for Google+ too.

The real battle here will be one of innovation, so although Facebook wins at present, Google+ may have the scope to provide more innovative application functionality for brands since it is starting from scratch.

Winner: Facebook

4. Video/imagery

One of the most established communities on Google+ is the photography community – millions of images are shared on Google+ each day as a result. Although the use of imagery within posts on Facebook does work well, the Google+ environment is much more focused on video and image content than Facebook’s and this is only expected to grow further in the future.

In addition, the Google+ hangout functionality has been a big hit with brands and celebrities so far and there is lots of scope for brand innovation with this in future.

Winner: Google+

5. Events

Events on Facebook can be a great way of helping an important brand announcement or event gain heightened visibility throught the fan base and Facebook itself. Event responses are one of the engagement elements that create more brand visibility in users’ news feeds, making it an effective mechanic for promotion; Google+ currently has no such functionality, nor has it mentioned any future plans for events, so Facebook wins hands down.

Winner: Facebook

6. Segmentation

Google+’s circles functionality allows brands to place their followers into specific circles and target specific content to those circles. This user-specific targeting is a massive benefit to brands that only want their audience to see the brand content they are interested in.

Facebook allows geo-targeted posts to specific locales and countries, but nothing anywhere near as customisable as Google+ and, as such, Google+ is likely much more effective once its user base has grown a little more.

Winner: Google+

7. Customization possibilities

Facebook pages are not terribly flexible when it comes to customisation, although this could change if Facebook opts to implement its timeline functionality for brands. It’s almost impossible to alter the name of a brand page once it is created and the image strip at the top of Facebook pages is always generated in a random order, making branding exercises in this area limited at best.

In contrast, brand pages on Google+ are almost completely customisable – the name can be changed following the page’s creation, the image strip (or in the case of Google+, the ‘scrapbook’) order can be defined, and all of the links in the “about” section are SEO friendly, again enhancing brand benefit in search. Once brands begin to accumulate more followers in Google+, they may find that the customisation possibilities in Google+ are a huge benefit.

Winner: Google+

Final score:

Facebook 4 (WINNER)

Google+ 3

All in all, both networks clearly have benefits when it comes to brand marketing activity, and most brands and their respective digital PR and social media agencies will opt for the network which fits the brief in terms of what they wish to achieve in social media.

The key will be in what happens in the future – both networks will need to innovate greatly if they are to capture the attention of brands and ensure that they continue to market on their network. Facebook has a huge benefit since it already has an established user base, but the growth of Google+ has been astronomical since its launch.

Either way, this will make a very interesting contest and who knows, maybe they will find a way to co-exist simultaneously. Only time will tell.

5 social network predictions for 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:37:00 +0000

Facebook is the power hitter in social networking today, and is likely to drive the most activity and a fair share of the innovation in social networking in 2012. But it's not the only company driving things forward.

That puppy is about to get very, very rich.(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

Here's are five ways social networking is likely to play out in the coming year.

1. Mobile social networking means good news for new social startups
In the U.S., the majority of consumers will soon have smartphones (Neilsen puts the figure at 44% today). Smartphones are about the most important thing to happen to social networking since Harvard sent its acceptance letter to Mark Zuckerberg.

Smartphones know where you are, who your friends are, who's nearby, and soon thanks to NFC, they'll know what you're buying and where. They are the key element of the next, mobile phase is social networking.

Facebook is serious about mobile social networking, but it is not the leader in this space in terms of design or technology. Smaller companies, like Path and Milk (with its first app, Oink) are coming out with new takes on mobile interaction. Square could play in this economy as well. All these services will likely use Facebook's network to put people or businesses or in touch with each other in new ways. More specialized mobile networks (really riders on top of Facebook) will appear next year.

2. Twitter makes big impact with brand marketers
While Twitter's new brand pages won't eat into big advertising or marketing budgets in 2012, the new business-friendly features will make an impact. Twitter is a highly effective platform for spreading brand messages via consumer/fans, and it doesn't take much to create an effective Twitter-based campaign.

While Facebook is still the most important and best social vehicle for marketing, Twitter will matter a lot in 2012 due to its simplicity and effectiveness.

You won't see a Super Bowl ad in 2012 without a Twitter tag on it.

3. Social Networking will tell the tale for the 2012 presidential election
We have seen how social feedback and link-sharing can bomb a presidential campaign: the YouTube and Web reaction to Rick Perry's "Strong" ad. And in 2008 the MoveOn group might have made the critical difference in the Obama campaign.

In 2012, the major political campaigns will be even more dependent on social networks, possibly to the extent that effective social campaigns will be more important than broad-stroke and increasingly expensive TV ads. Certainly, no candidate will be able to succeed without a strong following on each of the major social networks.

4. Google+ remains a critical success but a consumer flop
Google+ has a lot of good features, but it needs much more than that to take on Facebook and Twitter. Even Google's tacit promotion of Google+ on its other services and toolbars won't be enough to make it part of the daily diet of social networks for the hundreds of millions of users that Facebook has in its thrall.

Google+ also doesn't have enough muscle to be a big player as a branding tool, compared to Facebook and Twitter.

Even inside Google, we hear, employees don't use it very much.

So, the prediction? Google won't kill Google+, not after its failures with Orkut, Buzz, and Wave. The company will continue to blend Google+ into its other offerings, in particular GMail, Picasa Web, and its search result pages. But few people in the real world, if any, will switch over from Facebook to Google+.

The smart thing for Google? Buy Pinterest. But this is a predictions story, not an advice column.

5. Facebook and Yelp: Social network IPOs do well
For all the bad-mouthing of the Zynga IPO, it's not doing all that badly. As of this writing, it's down 5% from its offering price, and the stock has only be trading since December 16.

In other words, the stock wasn't priced crazy-high nor crazy-low, and if it doesn't drop much further, its middling out-of-the-gate performance will be unlikely to cool the ardor for social network stock offerings in 2012. Facebook and Zynga are two sides of a coin in the social network business. The one's success fortifies the other.

2012 will be a watershed year for startup IPOs. Facebook is set to go public in 2012, as is Yelp.

Interest in Facebook stock will be high as the company nears its IPO. The fire for this one will be stoked by the press, by politicians holding it up as an example of American technological and economic prowess, and of course by underwriters. From a financial perspective, it's far too early to tell if the IPO itself will be aptly priced. But Facebook's influence is growing, the company is making a lot of money, and a successful IPO will be good news for every social company out there. The forces are lining up to make sure this IPO is incredibly well-orchestrated, and successful in the right ways: that is, it pops when it goes public, but not too much.