Month: January 2019

Social Media Rundown: Original Tweeter Tag; Record-Setting Fine Against Facebook; Proactively Closing Nefarious Facebook Pages

Some interesting news out this week in the world of social media. First up: An op-ed in the New York Times describes Twitter as “the epicenter of a nonstop information war.” That description couldn’t be more accurate and the piece is worth a full read.

Also in Twitter news, the company is testing an ‘original tweeter’ tag to make it easier to tell who started a thread. Should be helpful.

And what week would be complete without some scandalous Facebook news? This time around, it seems the company may finally have to pay a price for its privacy practices related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal — by way of a record-setting FTC fine.

Finally, be sure to check out the learn section and the Chart of the Week to learn the secrets behind news feed algorithms, managing a Facebook Live, and a look at worldwide social media use.

Social Media News:

  • Opinion: Never Tweet (The New York Times). Twitter “is the epicenter of a nonstop information war, an almost comically undermanaged gladiatorial arena where activists and disinformation artists and politicians and marketers gather to target and influence the wider media world.” I’d say that is a pretty accurate description these days.
  • Twitter Testing ‘Original Tweeter’ Tag to Distinguish Who Started a Thread (TechCrunch). The new feature makes it easier to find posts from the original tweeter within a thread, but may also help curb abuse on the platform.
  • U.S. Regulators Have Met to Discuss Imposing a Record-Setting Fine Against Facebook for Privacy Violations (The Washington Post). The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly considering a “record-setting” fine as the result of its investigation into Facebook’s privacy practices following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The penalty is expected to be much larger than the $22.5 million fine on Google in 2012.
  • Facebook Warns Groups and Pages It Could Proactively Shut Them down for Being Fake News Networks (Fortune). The move is designed to keep page managers from skirting Facebook bans by using pages they already manage to re-post the content Facebook removed from their shuttered pages and groups. The move comes one week after it announced the removal of 364 pages that originated in Russia and were engaged in “coordinated, inauthentic behavior.” Here’s the announcement from the Facebook Newsroom.

Learn:

  • A Marketer’s Guide to Decoding Social Media Algorithms in 2019 (Buffer). Here’s a good look at all the major social media platforms, that is, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Read the post or listen to the podcast.
Signals that affect Facebook News Feed content rankings.
There’s a lot to consider when crafting a Facebook post.
  • 5 Steps to Your First Facebook Live (The Social Shake-Up). If you’re planning to do a Facebook Live broadcast soon, here’s a quick and easy checklist to run through before you go live.

Social Media Chart of the Week:

Number of Social Media Users Worldwide from 2010 to 2021 (In Billions) (Statista). We’re getting close to 3 billion social media users worldwide.

Number of social media users worldwide from 2010 to 2021.
In just a couple years, some 3 billion people will be using some form of social media.

Thanks for reading! Did I miss anything? Please share in the comments or hit me up on Twitter: @eric_wheeler.

Social Media Rundown: Cultbook; New Twitter Tools; Politicians Cannot Block Social Media Followers

Another fairly slow week in the world of social media. But the scathing CNBC piece about Facebook’s ‘cult-like’ workplace is definitely worth calling out. The bad press for Facebook just keeps on coming. Also, Twitter announced a couple new tools for publishers — one focused on events and another on improving analytics. A new ‘ice breaker’ feature may also be rolling out to all users soon.

Be sure to check out the learn section for tips on increasing social media engagement and a fun idea for improving engagement in Facebook ads.

Social Media News:

  • Inside Facebook’s ‘Cult-Like’ Workplace, Where Dissent Is Discouraged and Employees Pretend to Be Happy All the Time (CNBC). At a company-wide town hall in early October, numerous Facebook employees got in line to speak about their experiences with sexual harassment.
  • Twitter Gives Events a Boost with New Publisher Tools (TechCrunch). At CES, Twitter announced a new analytics dashboard and a separate dashboard for tracking information around both real-time and upcoming events. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a major improvement with Twitter Analytics, which has been lacking since inception.
  • Politicians Cannot Block Social Media Foes: U.S. Appeals Court (Reuters). A federal appeals court has ruled that a Virginia politician violated the Constitution by temporarily blocking a critic from her Facebook page.
  • Twitter Will Begin Testing ‘Ice Breakers’ to Spark Healthy Conversation (The Next Web). I’m not sure how this will spark ‘healthy conversations,’ but the new features include a way to display when a user is online, canned messages, and a new take on threaded replies.

Learn:

  • How to Increase Social Media Engagement: A Guide for Marketers (Hootsuite). This blog post has six ways to increase engagement, plus a simple definition of social media engagement, a few engagement tools, and how to measure engagement.
  • How to Use Quizzes in Facebook Lead Ads (Social Media Examiner). Seems like a neat way to create an engaging Facebook ad.

Chart of the Week:

Global Facebook Reach & Engagement (Smart Insights).

Although low, Facebook organic reach vs. page likes is not as bad as I might have guessed.