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Social media: Major area of concern – safety of the public

Decisions made by agencies of the national government, city and state authorities too can be well informed and faster with the use of analytics and social media monitoring. Some of the decisions made can be predictive in nature; for example gauging sentiments of the general public regarding royal weddings, parades or any other events which are basically public events held with much ado. Some of the best decisions can be made if proper tools and the right processes are in place.

Action that is responsive in nature will be desired in cases of natural disasters like bombing, shelling, earthquakes, shootouts and tornadoes. The value of participation of social media and monitoring is being looked at by the law enforcement and many other agencies where the major area of concern is safety of the public. When a crisis unfolds, a number of issues that are complex in nature like effectiveness real time, and intrusion of privacy become major concerns. Retrieval of data from social networks is being made publicly available by agencies for improvising on services provided to citizens.

Cost savings and deployment of resources with social media

Social media can be effectively used in certain cases which call for savings of cost and deployment of resources in a better manner. So as to gain better control of events that keep unfolding from time to time, efforts are being made worldwide by all the governments. In many cases, channels of social media are also being shut down. In many countries civil unrest continues, especially on the complexity of social media network monitoring and conversations. The end-use of the gathered information is being closely scrutinized.

Dealing with issues related to social media and going through proper legal channels

One of the questions under consideration is whether individual rights by the monitoring social media are being violated by the agencies of law enforcement and the government. As per some of the lawyers dealing with issues related to social media, everything that is posted online publicly does have reviewing potential by those readers who are not the intended readers. This can include the departments of police and the government. As far as posting on a profile on Google+, Facebook Page or a Twitter account goes, if at all something is posted the right to privacy is given up instantly, especially with regards to the content.

Any person who has internet accessibility is able to view the content you blog or tweet over the internet. When monitoring or accessing information on a social medial account that is private in nature is needed by the government, parallel runs the need for individual privacy and some protection. For obtaining access to sensitive info, it is very necessary for the government too to go through legal channels that are ethical. As per certain amendments made in the constitution, certain seizure and searches that are unreasonable are guarded via litigation. It is vital for public around the world to be aware of their rights on the World Wide Web.

Facebook has a new update. An all new revamped photo viewer that lets people view images in a 960 pixel wide resolution. That is good as compared to the 720 pixel display that they had previously. Based on peoples reviews and suggestions, the facebook developers team has come up with this new photo viewer where the photos upload faster and look better on the screen. The new look is designed in a way that all the focus rests on the photo alone. The white translucent light box shows already uploaded photos at a higher resolution.

The Additional Features

The white lightbox focuses more on the photo than the background, which is a good thing. So if you click on a picture next and see the background fading into a pure white, do not be surprised. It is the all-new photo uploader with enhancements. Some of the new features you might notice are that underneath the photos appear a sentence like profile owner’s name ‘with’ the tagged people. So if suppose Jack has tagged Anne and Josh in a photo, the caption will appear as Jack with Anne and Josh. This feature definitely adds on to the whole appeal but it gets a bit tricky when you try and add a caption. Try uploading a picture from your phone directly to Facebook and add a caption and it appears something like this: Jack (caption) with Anne and Josh.

You can also edit who you share the photo with directly from the viewer page and see where did you upload it from. You can rotate the photo by clicking on the rotate buttons on the bottom right corner of the photo, just above the descriptions. On the whole, with its new photo viewer, Facebook is trying to provide the users with all the features that a normal photo editing and storing solution like Picasa provides, with the main difference that the images will be stored at its end, rather than at Google’s. However, if you have not seen any of these new feature updates in your Facebook profile yet, worry not as they are gradually coming your way.

Google vs. Facebook Continues…

With the major players Facebook and Google fighting over their social media solutions, with Google+ integration with Picasa and Facebook’s bid to provide similar platform in its existing system, it is ultimately the end-user who wins by getting more features and better services. While Google tries to incorporate the social networking features of Facebook in its Google+, Facebook is integrating with other players including Microsoft and Skype to provide features like video conferencing and better image management.

The Social Networking arena has gone from just reaching out to people, to providing information about jobs, passing on information about events, recommending of products and even finding the right professionals for the job. There have been major changes from when people used to just connect using emails and then MySpace to the now more emerging and widely integrated social networking options. With more and more people connecting to the Internet, and more of the current online population also using the Social networking websites, there is a room for growth for all the major networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Orkut and the recently launched Google+.

Are Twitter and LinkedIn Growing?

Both Twitter and LinkedIn, with their support for small messages and professional reaching out capabilities respectively are expected to grow further, but the growth is expected to be limited from the fact that they have already reached out to most of their target audience in the US. While Twitter is expected to add another 3% of the US population, LinkedIn is also expected to have an increase of 2% and these developments will make both the Companies cross 20%.

Google+, Is It Really Growing?

While Google+, the latest among the various social networking solutions that Google released is relatively new, the Company boasts of an extremely high penetration worldwide. In fact, according to a report from Bloomberg, Google already revealed that it has reached out to more than 13% of the US adults so far, and it is expected to cover more than 22% over the next year, which would make it surpass both Twitter and LinkedIn, thus making it the #2 social media network after Facebook.

At its end, with the new features like Circles, which allows the users to limit the information they want to share with people at each level, extremely easy to use, drag and drop interface, support for video-chat and the brand name of Google, the Google+ is adding tons of new users every day. Apart from this, Google has also integrated the “+1” and other features seamlessly with Gmail, Google search engine and all its other pages, which make Google Plus extremely useful.

What About Facebook?

However, the Bloomberg and YouGov polls seem to suggest that while Google+ provides a lot of features, it is still not a threat to Facebook. Their study, which used a sample of 1000 adults to get the information, found that Facebook is not under much of a threat. While Facebook’s reach is expected to reduce from 71 to 69% among the US adults and 30% of the users who make use of both the services mentioned that they would reduce their usage time of Facebook, almost 31% Google+ users mentioned that they haven’t really used their account after the sign up.

Based on the findings of this report, and the overall behavior of the people, it seems that while Google+ may have more potential than Google’s previous endeavors like Orkut, Wave and Buzz, and will also soon make it overtake Twitter and LinkedIn, the Social Networking market is still expected to be largely dominated by Facebook.

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The thing with social media is that you never know how fat something becomes popular, and before you know it, information has reached every corner of the world that it can at preset reach. If this peep has a flavor of suspense, horror or shock value, it may even be catapulted into the most popular tweet of the moment or will turn into everyone’s status update apart from the ever popular likes, and +1 support. Seeing this flurry of activity, friends, family and followers will most likely take suit, and who knows it could very well attain status of global news.

Social media has great potential, and just as it can help ensure that information reaches out, it can at times be immensely destructive, even to the point of no return. First and foremost there’s less accountability at the onset, so if someone cooked up an interesting story it could simply become a trend for the moment and before you know it everyone’s retweeting, and doing their bit to spread the word. By the time accountability comes into picture, the damage may very well have been done.

Individual involvement in spreading the word via online social media

The main concern today is that many individuals choose to don the role of being an important source of passing on information, or at least strive to be the first amongst their online circle to highlight a certain matter, and have others follow suit. Yet others do it because they enjoy letting others know what they feel about a certain matter. People who’re active on their twitter accounts survive on the sheer number of followers they attract, and that’s only possible if you keep the tweets interesting or simply tweet about the most interesting story of the moment. Recently when the US team gunned down Osama Bin Laden, a Twitter account holder did get out a partial word talking about gun fire in Abbottabad which isn’t quite the norm. Of course, no one really caught on immediately

Then there are others who are usually looking out for a scoop and think they’ve found one when they see it, and immediately spread the word forward. Since blogging has become almost a norm with people are writing about many things. The detrimental fact is that a lot of it is simple ranting or news reported without a source, or sometimes a falsified source who doesn’t wish to be named. It gets even more complicated when others pick up the scent to an interesting piece, and opt to rewrite it. This rewriting and rephrasing has many a time changed the story itself.  It get’s further complicated because all of these stories too are being shared and tweeted, and before long this misrepresentation is the biggest story of the moment.

Is your online world a promise of authenticity

There are many examples of such unethical reporting that’s popularized through online social media channels but it doesn’t always blow out of proportion but when it does, who’s to be held accountable. So, if your heart cringed in fear and you were visibly shocked after hearing about the mass grave concealing dozens of dismembered corpses, you need to know more, and this time around it matters not whether you saw the news update on television or read about it online.

Social media channels can be used for personal growth

Social media is viewed upon with great interest the world over because of its potential, and dynamic nature, wherein, it could skyrocket a certain issue in less than no time. The world is tuned into social media channels, and this popular trend can in fact actually benefit those who sign in. On a broader spectrum, the advantages of online activity can be tapped into. As such, online games, and social media channels which are already popular pastimes, and do away with boredom can easily be used to impart knowledge.

Not everything needed for life on the outside is part of every school curriculum, and this is where social media and online games can be used to bridge the gap, and impart knowledge. This may include the need t look into aspects like teamwork, leadership, time management, and creative problem solving. Such skills will in turn ready youngsters, adolescents, and teens to prepare for college, and in general world on the outside. It brings us back the need for exploring more and readying youngsters to face the world rather than simply be dependent on bookish knowledge that leaves many clueless when placed in a new environment.

The transition from a structured classroom environment to that of a busy college life isn’t easy to fit into, and preparing our kids with certain skills would certainly make the shift a lot easier, and less taxing. It’s not to be mistaken that playing games alone can help kids prepare for the outside world, but the idea is to understand how teens approach certain games that place them in unfamiliar territory. The psychology behind the decisions they take in solving a problem or moving to the next level of a game is what holds the key to help them cope outside, and once this is understood, it can be used to better their chances in the real world.

Power of status updates on social media

The need to update a status message today is very real, and when teens find their friends involved, and a flurry of comments, this becomes a bigger realty. This positive environment can be used in regards to academic goals too. These closed networks help youngsters reach out, and empowers them to o better or solve any niggling problem, so, it could be used to pursue academic goals, and step up simply by reaching out, a little appreciation, peer participation, and on a basic level getting out of the closet if educational goals are haunting a youngster.

Learning for life through strategy games and logical reference

Games may seem very fancy with the brilliant designs and characters that enjoy screen space, but at the onset it’s a very mathematical problem that’s’ been converted to make something archaic very interesting. Whether its strategy, team work or time management, games can teach a lot, and even winning and losing can help one be more motivated simply because everyone wants to be atop the leadership board. Games that require logic, reference, and skill can keep students interested long enough to actually look for solutions.

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There is no denying that social media today is an integral part of communication. This communication need not be limited to people you know, and expands beyond the realm of imagination in certain instances. Not everybody today hires an SEO expert to attain success in the online world because most website or blog owners know a thing or two about free online advertisement. There are times you may come across a great article but you notice it hasn’t been shared as much as it deserves. This can primarily be because the article though interesting, may not be a topic that interests everyone.

Your article title can to a certain degree determine whether or not the feeds are picked up by potential readers. If you depended on a title that says ‘Bajau Laut at sea’ it would seem a rather ambiguous title for many. This because though it’s a matter of grave concern not everyone understands what you’re talking about. However, if your title read, ‘Save corals at sea and Bajau Laut’, people would instantly at least get an idea of what your article talks about.

Sharing online content via Facebook

Sharing your bog posts and articles on your Facebook wall is always a great idea but it doesn’t guarantee results because the basic idea of sharing with friends becomes a limited idea. Yes, some f the information you pass on maybe shared by friends, and then friends of friends, but even then your shared content cold die a quick death. The key to your success in most cases lies with appealing to strangers, and getting more readers to catch on.
Remember your article will never be read by every online visitor, and many will just let it pass. The key to success is to make sure you get a vast majority to take interest.

Online success by sending out a well thought of tweet

A single good article can work wonders for you and get you a host of followers on your twitter stream. You must be attentive about how much you say on your short twitter stream. It’s all about the right message, so start out with a bang. If you can attract a few tweeter followers, and they retweet your message, it goes a long way based on the number of sharing channels they open up. There is no harm in sharing your content over and over again for a while so long as you don’t fool already existing followers. Make sure you mention it’s a rerun when sharing it as a tweet again.

Let your voice be heard through online sharing channels

Always go back and check your shared short url because you don’t want to waste your time sharing a faulty url. It’s simply a dud bomb, and can irritate potential readers. The need to tweet becomes necessary for any website content that needs to be shared or any message sent across. It’s a great way to get out there, and try to reach more people directly rather than just depending on effective use of keywords for SEO success. Make sure your tweet widget is visible and self explanatory because it’s surprising how many people are willing to promote an article that interests them. Today, everyone wants to be heard, so make use of public interest.

Nowadays, avoiding social media is not good for marketing, so it won’t be long until you will have to create a Facebook business page for your company. After you fill in the necessary details and set up the page, you will have to start offering updates and interact with the community. Here is what you should and what you shouldn’t do if you want to be successful.

Be Natural

One of the most important things that people seem to forget about social media is that you have to be sociable. This means that you can’t treat your audience like they are some strangers that should be happy to receive your updates. You have to communicate with them directly and drop the curtains. You can’t send out messages in a very serious tone every single time you post something. You can do this from time to time, but in other situations, you have to talk like a real person and form a bond with your viewers.

Don’t Forget to Update

Another important social media strategy is keeping things fresh. If you have something new to say, don’t forget to post it on your wall, no matter what it is. However, you have to make sure that you don’t fall into extremes; don’t post more than three things per day and try to post something at least twice per week. You don’t have to follow this rule religiously, but you should try to keep your fans updated without suffocating them with unnecessary interventions.

Keep your Audience Involved

Facebook is a great way to get instant feedback, so take advantage of this fact as soon as you can. Ask questions about products, try to find out what people like and what they don’t like and make sure to attend to their needs. If you have the financial power to make the changes needed, you have no reason to be afraid of some constructive criticism.

Try Not to Censor

The dark side of social media is always out there and if you expose yourself through a Facebook page, you have to be aware of the possibility that some people are not exactly fans of your company. If they decide to post negative comments on your wall, you can choose between trying to solve the matter and hitting the delete button. The first option is definitely the best one and the rest of your fans will appreciate your effort.

Conclusion

Making the right decision on Facebook is not exactly rocket science, but if you have many fans on your business page, you have to keep them happy without making any mistakes. You need to think before you act and try to keep the relationship between you and your audience in good standing. If you know how to react in different situations and if you have enough time to take care of the social media aspect of your business, you will surely notice the results.

Most brands are starting to emerge in the social media world and offer transparency in a way never before seen. You can now talk directly with the people from Coca Cola on Twitter or you can become a Nike fan on Facebook. The gap between the consumer and the brand is gradually closing, but you should expect all around advantages from this merge. In fact, one of the biggest problems with going online and following the social media current is dealing with negative feedback. If your business is just breaking out of its social media shell and it seems that people have opposing views regarding your actions, you should learn a few things about how to react.

Identify the Cause

The first step in solving the problem is identifying its cause. If you are lucky, the negative feedback you receive will be to the point and you will figure out exactly what’s happening based on the comments you receive on your social media profiles. In other cases, you will simply fall prey to unjustified attacks and you will have to find the underlying cause on your own. Keep in mind that some people will simply cause problems because of a personal habit or previous experience with your brand. In these cases, you should focus on finding a solution indirectly, rather than dealing with each individual in particular. You should be able to make the difference between someone that has a real problem with your brand and those who complain merely for the fun of it.

Acknowledge the Problem

The easiest way to get some space between the problem and the solution is by acknowledging it. A simple tweet or blog post should suffice in most situations, but you have to make sure that your visitors know that you are working on solving their problems, but only if you really plan on offering a solution. If you won’t live up to your promises, this whole plan can easily backfire.

Customize the Solution

Once you know what the problem is and you start thinking about the solution, you should make sure that even those who are not complaining will notice your actions. You shouldn’t create a hotline for those who have problems and make them do the work; you have to reach out to everyone and offer some type of solution which you think will satisfy them. The solution might be expensive, but desperate times call for desperate measures. In some situations, you might even have to discuss the problems with your customers directly.

General Tips

If you are communicating with your audience and you notice negative comments, you shouldn’t censor these opinions unless you absolutely have to due to bad language. You also have to learn how to control your temper and treat each complain with professionalism if you want to get ahead. If you can handle the verbal abuse without any problems, you can engage in conversations and see if you can find a reasonable solution. If not, you can simply ignore these comments, but only until you figure out a viable strategy for dealing with negative feedback.

Dealing with budget changes is a difficult job, especially if you are running a business and you need to make room for a new department: social media. Because every company can benefit from joining the social media world, it is important to figure out how much you should spent on this aspect and how to start getting involved. Luckily, there are no clear rules, so if you know a thing or two about online marketing, you can create your own strategy and outshine your competitors.

Focus on Your Objectives

Social media is open for anyone, but you shouldn’t pick up strategies used by some of the largest companies in the world. Obtaining similar results might cost you thousands of dollars, so try to assess your needs and act accordingly. If your objectives are freezable, you will end up spending less money and the results will be visible without taking risks. As soon as you have a clear idea of what to expect from social media on a certain budget you can turn your attention to creating the right strategies.

Hiring a Social Media Team

Social media is not something you can do on the side. You need to hire a couple of people to be in charge of your efforts and everyone needs to know exactly what they’re doing. Once you go online, people will start asking questions and get in touch with you. This is the world of transparency and you won’t be able to avoid or postpone direct contact with your potential customers. If someone has a question, your team needs to know the answer. They also have to be prepared to deal with certain delicate situations or technical difficulties. If everyone has a clear role in your company, their jobs will be easier.

Analyze the Results

Depending on what you’re trying to obtain from your involvement in social media, you have to figure out a way to analyze the results and see where to go from there. In most cases, obtaining clear facts and figures is not that difficult and you will probably have a very detailed activity list at the end of the month. The tough part is analyzing it and making the difference between what you did right and what you did wrong. You can always make minor changes to your strategies and you will eventually figure out which is the best path to social media success.

Conclusion

Your social media budget should cover the costs of hiring a few new staff members and offering them the resources necessary to succeed. Besides that, you always have to invest in social media advertising and make your presence known as soon as you go online. This won’t be cheap, but if you do it correctly you can consider it an investment and it will eventually pay off. Keep in mind that you can always think outside the box and create your own social media strategy; if you’re lucky, it might work better than you expect.

As of February 2011, the most popular social network is FaceBook, with over half a billion unique visitors logging in each month. This is by far the most popular website of this kind, but it took a few years until it managed to obtain this position. The second most popular social networking website is Twitter. This platform appeared only a couple of years ago, but it already gathered around 100 million unique visitors per month. The third spot is taken by MySpace, one of the older social networking websites, but it still pulls around 80 million unique visitors each month. If you are a business owner, you have to take a closer look at these websites and figure out how to get maximum exposure through them.

Getting Popular On FaceBook

After you create a regular FaceBook account, you need to start attracting visitors towards your account. The easiest way to get noticed on this social media platform is by getting “Liked”. If a popular person “likes” your page, it will appear on his wall for all of his friends to see. This will attract a few other people and sooner or later you will have thousands of fans depending on the type of business you are running. If you already have a YouTube or Twitter account with many subscribers or followers, you can simply tell them about your FaceBook page and you will instantly gain a few fans. After you already have a few people watching you, but you still want to get more, you should set up a contest with a couple of basic rules: anyone who likes and posts a comment on your FaceBook page will have a chance to win. This is by far the easiest way to attract people, but keep in mind that you will have to provide quality content after the contest is over if you want your fans to stick by your side.

Gaining Followers on Twitter

Twitter is growing rapidly and most business owners who are interested in social networking are already on top of it. Gaining popularity on this platform is a little bit complicated, but it can be done. Once you get familiar with how Twitter works, you can start twitting about trending topics, join certain conversation and use the retweet function every once in a while. You will slowly gain followers, but once you have your fan base, getting a message out there will be easier than you might imagine. Organizing a contest is also a good strategy.

Using MySpace

MySpace is considered a thing of the past by many people, but this platform hasn’t disappeared yet. If your business is related to the music industry, you will find your target audience here, so don’t neglect this website if you want full social media coverage. As with FaceBook and Twitter, you need to focus on providing quality content and getting involved. Sooner or later, people will start paying attention to what you have to say.