Flickr makes integration with Facebook easy, Finally!

Yes, finally Flickr has added the ability to share your photos on Facebook. Your photos will need to be set up as "public" photos for them to show up on your Facebook Wall. 

Social photo-sharing site Flickr has, at long last, added some much-need social networking integration to its online service. You can now simultaneously post your photos to Flickr and Facebook.

So how does it work?

First, connect your two accounts to get this integration working for you. Once that happens, each time you upload a public photo to your Flickr account, an update will appear on your Facebook wall including the image, its title and the description of the image.

Also remember to shut off the old Flickr to Facebook integration that you may have activated on Facebook. Otherwise you'll see everything show up double! To do this, just go to your Facebook wall and click on Options —> Settings —> Flickr where if it is enabled, just "remove" that enabled feature.

If I had a dime every time I heard "but I don't see how "Facebook" can help my business", I'd be a rich man! Yes, I know I've said this a guzzilian times but it's true.

Social networking is really nothing more than social brandcasting – meaning casting your brand out there in the social networks, period! So why are businesses not able to see the value of Brandcasting and leveraging the tools available to them to promote themselves?
 
Social Brandcasting benefits are quite simple:

• You can reach more people through popular sites like Facebook & Twitter than through ANY chamber event you may attend
• You can continuously promote your services and company events without spending a dime on print materials
• You can go on a "ra ra" campaign in a non-obtrusive manner and no one will think twice about it online

You can do "horizontal" brandcasting which is to everyone and everywhere across the board, same message, same positioning. Then you can do the "vertical" brandcasting where you position different messages on different platforms.  By balancing quantity (number of followers, fans, connections) and quality (what you say, how you say, the personna you create of yourself or your company online, etc.) you get the biggest bang for your buck.

Capice? If not, call me and I'll be more than happy to discuss this at length cause this is what my company does day in and day out!

Change is good right? Even when it's happening as fast as it is on Facebook. Lots of people are complaining about the new changes on Facebook, the biggest one being the renaming of the "become a fan" function to the "Like" button. Facebook has also launched Community Pages AND it has revamped its privacy controls but more about that in another post.

So you can no longer "become a fan" when you come upon a "fan page". Now you can "Like" the fan page or not. But note that this "Like" is unlike the "Like" that you select when you like a video or a status posted by your friends. This new "Like" means you are connected to the page that you say you "Like". So that means that your profile will show that you "Like" a new page.

The other "Like" is only you telling your friend that you liked what he/she posted and didn't need to leave a comment behind.

Confusing? Yeaaaah! But I'm sure it'll be just like anything else, pretty soon it'll be how we talk to people.

Here's what Facebook says about their "like" feature introduction. Hmmmm…lightweight???

Annnyway!  I wonder when Facebook will introduce the "Dislike" button!!!

Cyber criminal activity is growing and social networking sites are leading the pack in helping spread this activity. No, not intentionally but by virtue of the fact that social networking sites allow ease of sharing content, malware is easy to pass around.

According to a new report released by Blue Coat, a cyber security firm, cyber criminal activity is spreading so rapidly that security solutions providers are unable to keep up and continue to play catch-up.

Blue Coat reported that online storage and software downloading sites were two of the most common sites where malware was hidden. However what was most concerning in Blue Coat's report was that since social networking sites accounted for 25% of top internet activity, that's where most of the cyber attacks are happening. When networking on popular networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, opening links that contain malware is the leading cause for the spread of malware.

We've seen such attacks on Twitter where a user gets a tweet asking him or her to change their password and the minute they do so, their account is hacked into.

Some simple, common sense steps will help you from falling victim to malware and cyber criminal activity:

• Change your passwords on a regular frequency
• Make your passwords complicated enough so they cannot be guessed. Trust me, "password" is NOT a good password.
• Use tools like Tweetdeck for Twitter where you can "preview" links before opening them.
• Do NOT click on links sent to you via Direct Message (DM) on Twitter from someone you know
• On Facebook, use caution when accepting friend requests from people even if they are connected to others in your network
• Think before you post ANYTHING, and I mean anything. Sharing vacation plans online, is a strong no-no.
• Use caution when providing your information on new sites, you can't know how secure or not secure they may be.

Social networking requires MORE not less caution than before. Before, all we had to worry about was spam in our emails. Now, it's real-time information that's out there for anyone and everyone to see. Prevention is better than cure when networking online; so prevent the "bare-all" behavior and you'll be fine.

Interesting! A two-day London summit had social media activists from across the globe exploring ways to combat extremism using popular social networks. The event was organized by Jason Leibman who is the co-founder of the Alliance for Youth Movement and who stated that popular social networks like Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter are critical tools to fight extremism.
  
He reiterated the point that we always tell our prospects and clients – which is that social networks provided a wider reach at lower cost and allow the spread of powerful messaging in an easy manner.

I found that there are many ways people are using social networks for political awareness. Twitter was used to protest Iran's censorship on the Internet, people in Nigeria are using their phones to help people learn more about the next elections, and we ourselves know that the biggest social media success story is our US president Barack Obama who systematically created an outreach that is unparalleled anywhere, through popular social networks.

So the uses for social networks continue to grow and surprise some of us. We, the hands-on practitioners of social marketing feel that it's time for a lifestyle change for businesses. Businesses need to embrace social media today because that's the only way we'll all be able to remain viable, current, and engaged.

Well, here's more research and now it appears that finally Facebook IS the number one site accessed by internet users as of last week. According to an Internet Research company, Hitwise, Google got 7.03% of all web visits while Facebook got 7.07%.

Hmmm……….

Ok so Facebook and Google will probably play this number 1 or number 2 dance until a real winner emerges or a third player enters the competition. Google or Facebook, it matters not to me, I visit both frequently but I do visit Google more than Facebook. Perhaps it's the nature of my business or perhaps it's that I just like Google more for now.
 

As if the "bare all" online is not enough, now users can share their location with their friends online any time. Facebook says it will add a "friend location information" which will be introduced at a developer conference in April 2010. So what will this friend location do? Basically you can where you are when you updated your status with your friends.

Twitter plans to do just that with its geolocation feature in it's site soon, perhaps to beat Facebook to it?
 
So why is this "location" sharing so important that Facebook and Twitter are going live with it? And you know that others will follow suit, right?

Well, mainly because users can get localized news and find local people in their area. The power of this will help businesses seeking to do localized marketing.
 
But as I eluded to above with my "bare-all" comment, won't this geolocation create additional vulnerability for social network users? Criminal activity is growing on social networks so is it really wise for social networks to introduce a feature which will drive more criminal behavior?
 
When and how will social networks balance "access" with "safety"?

Move over computer, you are becoming extinct; well at least slowly moving into oblivion as far as social networking sites go. Comscore, a company which reports web metrics found that 1 of 3 smartphone users accessed social networking sites through their mobile browsers. Facebook saw a 112% increase in mobile users and Twitter saw a 347% increase.

Comscore senior VP of mobile thinks that "Social media is a natural sweet spot for mobile since mobile devices are at the center of how people communicate with their circle of friends, whether by phone, text, email, or, increasingly, accessing social networking sites via a mobile browser."

The mobile social media access numbers reported by Comscore are staggering when you think about it. Over 25 MI Facebook users and approximately 5 million Twitter users logged in using mobile browsers.
 
Here's some food for thought for all business owners out there:

You know that mobile users aren't just logging into Facebook and Twitter through their mobile browsers. They're doing other browsing too; from buying quick ticket items to ordering food.

Are you ready with a "MOBILE" compatible website for these mobile users?

I always tell my kids to be careful what they say and to be extra careful about what they write in emails or online. Now I read about this case of a high school student who sued a principal and won because her online posts were protected under the 1st amendment and I'm just waiting to hear my kids debate the issue with me.
 
Here's what happened.
 
A federal magistrate in Florida has ruled that a student who created a Facebook page to complain about her teacher was protected under the 1st amendment. Apparently in 2007, a senior named Katie Evans said this about her teacher "the worst teacher I've ever met". She took down the page a few days, got suspended by the school's principal, and got moved from her advanced placement classes to regular classes. The principal got sued and the magistrate ruled that the suspension was unconstitutional AND asked the principal to compensate the student who was "wrongly" suspended.
 
Should social networking sites where people bare their deepest emotions and post things sometimes without thinking be protected under the 1st Amendment? But then where will we draw the line? Will criminals who brag about their crimes online also be protected? I don't know about this social networks and free speech.
 
Do I hear the attorneys world over taking a deep breath and preparing themselves to defend people who find themselves demoted, fired, jailed because of what they wrote online?

79 percent of Fortune Global 100 companies are at least on one of the following four social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or a Corporate Blog.This according to Burson-Marsteller, a company that conducts studies on social media usage.

However, the same study found that Asian companies are shying away from Facebook and Twitter, focusing more on using local platforms that are used in their country or region. Those social networks include Mixi in Japan, CyWorld in South Korea and Baidu Spaces and Renren in China. These Asian companies appear to limiting their usage of Facebook and Twitter only to communicate with consumers in international markets. They prefer the local social networks for reaching their most targeted audience.
 
According to Burson-Marsteller, Asian companies are more concerned about time, money, and measurement of their social media involvement thus making their use of social networks much more conservative.