This Week: Twitter's 100 million users, Amazon hiring for social, Facebook gets smart, social media's lifespan and how employees should use social
1. Best state of the union: Twitter
Activity
During an informal "state of the union" with reporters, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo revealed the micro-blogging platform has 100 million active users logging in at least once a month. Fifty million users are active every day, and some 55 million users log on to Twitter from their phone or tablet every month.
Costolo also casually revealed all users will begin seeing promoted tweets from companies they don't follow. Earlier this summer, Twitter started putting promoted tweets in users' timelines from brands they followed. Bottom line: Ads are coming for all of Twitterville.
2. Best news for the unemployment rate: AmazonWatch out, Zynga. In preparation for a push into social commerce and social gaming, Amazon announced it is staffing up. Speculation is that one specific area of focus will be the longtime feature that helped Amazon become the largest Internet retailer: the customer review section that occupies the bottom of most product pages. This was a pre-Facebook way to harness personal opinions on products or "likes." The online retailer may also be planning to add more social features to its Kindle e-reader devices.
3. Best new feature in response to a competitor: Facebook
The more information we give Facebook, the more they test. Now it seems the social network is testing a "Smart Lists" feature that would automatically sort users' contacts into groups based on their user information and social connections. These lists have two major "benefits." The first relates to sharing content: You can choose a list that you created manually or one that was created for you from the drop-down menu. For example, you could send an article about your alma mater to your college-friends list and send an article about your company to your work-friends list. The second benefit will be users can filter their News Feed to only display content from certain friend lists. Not interested in baby pictures? Choose a friend list of your blissfully baby-free friends. The feature is clearly intended to be a simple alternative to Google+'s Circles feature. Smart.
4. Best new perspective on socializing content: Bitly
How long is a link "alive" in social media before people stop caring? According to new research from Bitly, most socialized content receives half its total lifetime clicks within just three hours of being posted. That "half-life" holds steady across Twitter, Facebook, instant-messaging platforms and email sharing. Good news for content that brands wish would go away. Not so good news for content that brands want to stick in the minds of consumers.
5. Best social media tip for employers: Focus on employees
Sure, you can use social media to engage your fans and provide customer service. But are you looking for ways to take social media beyond the obvious? This article by Jay Baer from MarketingSherpa shares three quick tips for using social in nuanced ways that improve a company's internal communications, mobilize employees and improve brand monitoring.
---Dianne Molina
Posted by dmolina
