Dominating the headlines in the world of social media and beyond is the scathing opinion article by Facebook Co-Founder Chris Hughes in The New York Times. The thoughtful piece calls for the FTC to step in and break up the company. It’s a must read.

Also in the news section: the rise of fear-based social media apps and new features rolling out on both Facebook and Twitter. Read on for your weekly dose of all things social media.

Social Media News

• It’s Time to Break upFacebook (The New York Times). “Mark’s influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government,” writes Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes. “He controls three core communications platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — that billions of people use every day.” This opinion piece gives nice background of how Facebook got so big and the steps needed to break up the company and reign in its social media monopoly. It’s a bit of a long read, but I’d encourage anyone to at least watch the video summary of the article. The article has stirred up a lot of attention with Mike Huckabee saying that social media companies should be treated like public utilities.
• The Rise of Fear-Based Social Media like Nextdoor, Citizen, and Now Amazon’s Neighbors (Vox). Although violent crime in the U.S. is at its lowest rate in decades, social media apps based on monitoring and reporting crime are some of the most downloaded social and news apps in the U.S.
• Now You Can Book Appointments Directly Through Instagram and Facebook (Mashable). A “Book Now” button will soon appear on business pages, allowing people to click to select the date, time, and services they want. From there the transaction transfers to Messenger where it connects the user with the business. Appointments can also be added to a user’s calendar of choice.
• Twitter Will Now Let You Add Photos, Videos, or GIFs to Retweets (The Verge). Now available on iOS, Android, and mobile browsers (but not yet on desktop), users can add media to a retweet by tapping the “retweet with comment” option and then choosing the image or GIF icon in the toolbar.

Learn

• 10 Tips for Making the Most of Social Media at Trade Shows (Social Media Explorer). From setting goals to knowing which hashtags to use, this article gives a nice overview of how to maximize your tweeting during an industry conference.
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  6 Basic Steps to Running an Effective Social Media Audit (Social Media Today). It’s never too early or too late to run a social media audit. This article gives a nice checklist to consider when conducting social media audit. This article was written by a full-time social media consultant, so she likely has done many social media audits.

Chart of the Week

Platform Matrix (Axios). More of a table than a chart, really. Either way, I think the folks at Axios did a nice job of succinctly describing the subtle differences in the top social media platforms. Not sure why Google made the list, but not it’s video-sharing social media platform YouTube.