Six tips to building a huge social network

Social media is a great way to put yourself out there and receive a rewarding, fulfilling response from likeminded (or just open-minded) individuals from all over the world. It’s also a great way to expand your personal and professional networks, which can result in all kinds of advantages down the line, from fun opportunities to a free exchange of ideas to measurable professional gain. And anyone can build a respectable online network with a little diligence and some online savvy.

Here are six ways to help you stand out in the increasingly busy social media crowd and build a massive following for yourself by leveraging the latest apps, best practices, and Intel-powered mobile devices.

1. Reach out to readers and networks that make sense
While it’s wise to have a presence on every major social media network, you’re going to get the best response by focusing your energies on the most appropriate networks for you. Determining this is a matter of researching demographics and usage patterns, trial and error, and common sense. For example, a professional looking to establish leadership or expand visibility in his chosen industry (perhaps to get a better job offer) might choose to focus heavily on LinkedIn, while an aspiring fashion designer or visual artist would likely be best on a more visual network like Pinterest or Instagram, where folks with similar interests are more likely to spend time. Try starting here to help you get started on your strategy.

Regardless of which networks you choose, remember to tailor your messaging appropriately. Updates on Twitter should fit well within its 140-character limit, and should use hashtags when appropriate. Videos on YouTube should be short and professionally edited. Continue to refine your messaging based on the updates that bring in the most Likes, Retweets, and new followers. And remember, all of the major social networks have their own apps, so it’s easy to make updates on the fly with the lightning fast processor inside your Intel tablet. But opening all those apps individually can suck up a lot of time if you’re going to be active across many networks. Not to worry: there’s an app for that!

2. Use an app to streamline the process
Juggling a half dozen social media platforms and possibly even more actual accounts can suck up a huge amount of time. There’s no need to handle them all individually. You can use a centralized app or online service to help streamline the operation. Services like Hootsuite, Buffer, and SocialFlow let you register all your accounts, then manage them from a central dashboard, where you can create posts, schedule them for release, and better manage the chatter about you and the topics you care about. These apps let you turn an Android tablet like the Acer Iconia A1 into a convenient multi-tasking dashboard, and no matter what you’re sharing, it’ll be easy to do it from anywhere thanks to its zippy Intel® Core™ processor.

3. Share and re-share original content
Sure, sharing third-party content like lists and gifs is fun, but your social network may be more interested in content you’ve created yourself. Original blog posts are especially appealing, as they give the reader a personal peek into your mind, helping to establish you as a unique voice and build a stronger bond with your online network.

While most social media shares should be sent out only once, feel free to re-share your best original content multiple times. Experts advise sharing posts up to three times, at intervals of eight hours apart, in order to reach readers located in every time zone around the world. But remember: social networking isn’t all about you, it’s about communication, and that means more than sending out content for feedback.

4. Spend time responding, rather than just posting
Social media is a two-way (or multi-way) conversation, and you prove that you’re actively listening when you take part in that conversation rather than simply sending out blind updates. The biggest social media players have shown how successful it can be if you actually respond to other people’s posts more often than you create your own original ones. Social media users feel a connection when you write back. And when they know that you’re a real person with a legitimate interest in them who takes them seriously, they’ll be more likely to reciprocate. (Pro tip: make sure you use the appropriate syntax and standards for @ replies, hashtags, and the like. Not doing so may cause followers to quickly lose patience with you.) And once you’ve started to forge a connection, make sure you maintain it by staying active, no matter what distractions come up, or where you find yourself.

5. Leverage mobility to very your message
Life doesn’t just happen in the office and the living room. Thanks to ubiquitous connectivity and portable devices like Intel-powered tablets, you can (and should) get your message across from just about anywhere. Rather than writing a social media update about what you’re thinking, now you can tell people what you’re actually doing. Better yet, show them with a photo or short video. The Asus VivoTab Note 8 makes capturing and sharing a photo or video with your followers easy, and its Intel processor keeps it running quickly and efficiently, so you can post those updates in a snap and not miss out on any of the fun.

Mix up your message and leverage these kinds of images whenever possible; studies show that users are more apt to Like or Retweet posts that contain photos than those that only contain text. And when those photos and videos include familiar faces, all the better.

6. Meld online social with real world social
Building a presence on the Internet will only get you so far. When you venture into society, use the opportunity to engage nearby members of your online network in person. This can be in the form of hosting meetups or other get-togethers at your favorite café or watering hole, or exploring further afield by pulling together groups when you’re on the road. Invite people individually on Facebook, or broadcast your whereabouts via Twitter or Foursquare. Don’t forget to capture photographs and commentary from the gathering while the fun times are raging. Nothing beats a great party picture captured on your tablet to help build your network even further!

Follow these tips and you should start to see your social presence gain momentum. But whichever tips you take to heart, remember an Intel-powered tablet can help bump you up to the next social strata. All-day battery life gives you the power to post those selfies well into the night, and copious connectivity options let you keep your feeds active until dawn.




Source : pcworld.com

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Facebook starts looking for click-bait so you don’t have to

Today we’re announcing some improvements to News Feed to help people find the posts and links from publishers that are most interesting and relevant, and to continue to weed out stories that people frequently tell us are spammy and that they don’t want to see. We’re making two updates, the first to reduce click-baiting headlines, and the second to help people see links shared on Facebook in the best format.

Click-Baiting Headlines

“Click-baiting” is when a publisher posts a link with a headline that encourages people to click to see more, without telling them much information about what they will see. Posts like these tend to get a lot of clicks, which means that these posts get shown to more people, and get shown higher up in News Feed.

However, when we asked people in an initial survey what type of content they preferred to see in their News Feeds, 80% of the time people preferred headlines that helped them decide if they wanted to read the full article before they had to click through.

Over time, stories with “click-bait” headlines can drown out content from friends and Pages that people really care about.

So how do we determine what looks like click-bait?

One way is to look at how long people spend reading an article away from Facebook. If people click on an article and spend time reading it, it suggests they clicked through to something valuable. If they click through to a link and then come straight back to Facebook, it suggests that they didn’t find something that they wanted. With this update we will start taking into account whether people tend to spend time away from Facebook after clicking a link, or whether they tend to come straight back to News Feed when we rank stories with links in them.

Another factor we will use to try and show fewer of these types of stories is to look at the ratio of people clicking on the content compared to people discussing and sharing it with their friends. If a lot of people click on the link, but relatively few people click Like, or comment on the story when they return to Facebook, this also suggests that people didn’t click through to something that was valuable to them.

Sharing links in posts

Our second update relates to sharing links in posts. When people share a link on Facebook it often appears in News Feed with a large picture, a headline and some text that gives context on the link:

News Feed FYI Click-baiting 2

Sometimes publishers share links in status updates or in the text caption above photos:

We’ve found that people often prefer to click on links that are displayed in the link format (which appears when you paste a link while drafting a post), rather than links that are buried in photo captions. The link format shows some additional information associated with the link, such as the beginning of the article, which makes it easier for someone to decide if they want to click through. This format also makes it easier for someone to click through on mobile devices, which have a smaller screen.

With this update, we will prioritize showing links in the link-format, and show fewer links shared in captions or status updates.

The best way to share a link after these updates will be to use the link format. In our studies, these posts have received twice as many clicks compared to links embedded in photo captions. In general, we recommend that you use the story type that best fits the message that you want to tell – whether that’s a status, photo, link or video.

Will this affect my Page?

A small set of publishers who are frequently posting links with click-bait headlines that many people don’t spend time reading after they click through may see their distribution decrease in the next few months. We’re making these changes to ensure that click-bait content does not drown out the things that people really want to see on Facebook.




Source : Facebook  ,  slashgear

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Twitter to Remove Images of the Deceased Upon Families’ Request

Twitter said on Tuesday it will remove images of deceased individuals at the request of family members, a move that comes a week after Robin Williams’s daughter said she is quitting the platform after being sent disturbing photo-shopped images of her father’s death.

“In order to respect the wishes of loved ones, Twitter will remove imagery of deceased individuals in certain circumstances,” said a statement tweeted by Twitter spokesman Nu Wexler on Tuesday.

The statement instructed immediate family members and other authorized individuals who would like to “request the removal of images or video of deceased individuals, from when critical injury occurs to the moments before or after death” to email privacy@twitter.com.

The change gives grieving family members a way to scrub the social media outlet of images or videos of their loved ones–whether the content itself breaches Twitter’s rules or not. The new policy is a slight pivot for Twitter, a champion of freedom of speech since its founding and where sensitive content such as nudity and other graphic images have proliferated compared with other social media sites.

Twitter doesn’t allow obscene or pornographic images in user profiles, abusive behavior and threats of violence and the posting of private identifiable information. The company doesn’t actively monitor the half a billion tweets that flood its website and mobile apps for questionable content. Instead, it is up to the users to flag such content, which Twitter will then review.

While its relatively open policy has made Twitter a powerful communication medium, it has also led to plenty of corrosive content and behavior.

This insensitive side of Twitter—though not new—gained widespread attention when Zelda Williams, the daughter of the recently deceased Robin Williams, was harassed on Twitter last week. Williams was reportedly sent fake photo-shopped images of her father’s death and other insulting messages. Williams then said she would no longer use Twitter as well as Instagram and Tumblr. The two Twitter accounts who sent the images were suspended.

In a rare statement responding to the incident, Del Harvey, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, said last week: “We are in the process of evaluating how we can further improve our policies to better handle tragic situations like this one. This includes expanding our policies regarding self-harm and private information, and improving support for family members of deceased users.”

The new policy also comes hours after gruesome photos and videos depicting the beheading of an American photojournalist were circulated on the platform. The account that tweeted the images has since been suspended.

Twitter, however, included a caveat on the removal requests. It added that in its review “Twitter considers public interest factors such as the newsworthiness of the content and may not be able to honor every request.”




Source : blogs.wsj.com

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Twitter boasts 4 out of 5 world leaders on its service

The fourth annual rankings of the use of social media among world leaders has been published by the Digital Policy Council. The report looks at the number of world leaders that are using the social network Twitter to spread their agendas to the world. According to the report, about 80% of all world leaders are using twitter.

That works out to 4 out of 5 world leaders taking advantage of Twitter. The DPC says that the numbers are an increase of 8% compared to the number of leaders using the service in 2012. The report also lists the top ten tweeting leaders in the world.

President Obama was in the top spot with 16 million followers added in a year according to the report. The biggest Twitter debut for a world leader in 2013 was Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono taking the second place spot. The Indonesian President joined Twitter in 2013 and gained 4.2 million followers in short order.

The world leader that made the biggest climb in the Twitter rankings in 2013 was Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai. He moved from number 10 in the Twitter world leader rankings in 2012 to seventh place in 2013. He increased his followers from 1 million to 2.4 million over the year. The biggest world leader holdouts come from China. None of the Chinese leaders are on Twitter, the social network is blocked in the country.






SOURCE: Digitaldaya

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Google patents process for turning chats into comic strips

If you're a Bitstrips aficionado or a fan of flicking open an old-school newspaper funnies section, a patent Google has been awarded might be right up your alley: turning conversations into digital comic strips. The information turned up in a patent detailing a process that, in terms of the social element, at least, sounds very similar to the aforementioned Bitstrips: the ability to share on social networks, with at least two users being involved in the comic.

The patent details a process that uses pre-existing conversations, such as chats, and turns them into comic strips. This conversion process can be manually initiated, it would seem, or it can take place automatically, and it must involve at least two individuals (hence, the conversation conversion aspect of it). The strip can then be opened to editing by other parties to further its life span, so to speak.

There's a bit social aspect to the comic generation idea, with Google's process detailing ways to socially share the created comics: over instant messaging, on a social network a la Facebook, a profile page, perhaps like one's Google+ profile page, or over email. The image above is one example of a sample generated chat by the process -- hopefully if this comes to fruition, the resulting creations will be of a more entertaining persuasion.

Of course, this may never actually surface. There's no information about whether this is something that Google plans to create and bring to its users or just have tucked away silently in its I-own-this-patent folder, which arguably seems more probable. What do you think? Does the patent bring up flashbacks of the last batch of Bitstrips cluttering your Facebook feed, or do you look forward to sharing your knee-slapping conversations with the wider world?




VIA: Engadget

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Facebook 'Dislike' thumbs-down finally here, but only in Messenger

Mobile messaging stickers are hot stuff right now, and Facebook is riffing on the trend with a new set of stickers that create some new poses for its iconic Like button hand. According to AllFacebook, the pack was created a few months ago during a hackathon.

I can definitely see myself getting plenty of use out of the thumbs-down sticker. Just don’t go too crazy texting, or you’ll have to reply with a sore thumb.

You can find the set as a free download in the Sticker Store on the Messenger app.


SOURCE: The Next Web

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Announcing Promoted Accounts in Timeline for Twitter's

In 2010, we launched Promoted Accounts to help users discover businesses and people of interest, and to help advertisers build a highly engaged audience of Twitter followers. A study from earlier this year shows that users and businesses benefit from connecting on Twitter - in fact, 72% of the research participants said that they were more likely to make a future purchase from brands they follow or engage with on Twitter.

To help make it even easier for users and businesses to connect, we’ve been running a test that displays account recommendations on iOS and Android devices. These recommendations leverage Tweets as a call to action and display natively in the home timeline. For example, a new coffee shop could run a geo-targeted Promoted Accounts campaign in timeline to build awareness about their business and explain why users should follow them on Twitter.

After a successful test with a number of advertisers, we are excited to expand this beta to all advertisers globally starting today. This option is available in addition to the existing Promoted Accounts format that runs within the Who to Follow section.

As always, if you are an advertiser running a Promoted Account campaign, you will only be charged when a user follows your account.

Our hope is this enhancement to Promoted Accounts will make it easier for businesses to connect with the 76% of our users who access Twitter on their mobile device, and help users connect with the brands they care most about.



SOURCE: Twitter

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Facebook developers experiment with 'sympathy' button

Facebook’s “Like” button could be getting' another overhaul. The company nixed' the ubiquitous thumbs-up symbol, starting with a rollout' at that began a month ago. Now it could be getting a more emotionally' complex character in the guise of a “sympathy” button.

A Facebook engineer' this week told the Huffington Post that some of the engineers' at the social media giant were working' on a “sympathize” button. The button could rely' on a “mood” drop-down list when users' post statuses. If the indicated mood is “sad”, for example, the “like” button would' turn into a “sympathize” button.

Friends could then automatically show sympathy by clicking it. The sympathy count would show up just as the like count shows up currently. This would remove' the pesky need to type a sad-face emoticon or, heaven forbid, actual words of support' found deep within the hearts' of the average user’s few hundred closest friends.

No timeline for the 'rollout of a “sympathize” button was announced. However, it was tested. One of Facebook’s engineers has already tried it. The results were witnessed' at a Facebook hackathon' that occurred earlier this year.



SOURCE: Huffington Post

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