More Employers Using Social Media To Promote Their Companies

More than one-third (35%) of employers in the U.S. use social media to promote their company, according to a new CareerBuilder survey.
Twenty-five percent of these employers are using social media to connect with customers and find new business, while others are using it to recruit and research potential employees (21%), or improve their employment brands (13%).

"As communication via social media becomes increasingly pervasive, organizations are harnessing these sites to help achieve a variety of business goals," said Jason Ferrara, vice president of corporate marketing for CareerBuilder.

"Social media allows organizations to communicate in ways that didn't exist ten years ago, promoting their services and brands while also supplementing their recruitment strategy."

Businesses of all sizes and types use social media to promote their companies. Twenty-nine percent of organizations with 500 or fewer employees use social media, followed by 38 percent of companies with 501 to 1,000 employees and 44 percent of companies with more than 1,000 workers. Breaking it down by industry, leisure and hospitality led with 57 percent using social media to promote their business, followed by IT, (48%), retail (43%) and sales (41%).

When it comes to managing social media, 43 percent of employers have their marketing departments take care of their social media strategy, followed by public relations (26%) and human resources (19%). Twenty-five percent of employers have 1-3 people communication for their organization, while 7 percent have 4-5 people handle the work. Eleven percent have six or more people communicate for their company via social media and fifty-seven percent said they did not know.

Workers who come across company pages on social media sites shared what they would most like to see, including:

*Job listings-35%

*Q&A or fast facts about the organization-26%

*Information about career paths within the organization-23% source: webpronews.com/topnews/

Apple Posts Record Quarter at $15.7 Billion

Apple has released its third quarter financial results. This reflects fiscal 2010 third quarter ended June 26, 2010.

The company boasted record revenue of $15.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion. This compares to a year ago, when Apple reported revenue of $9.73 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.83 billion.

Obviously Apple has had some big product launches this year that largely contributed to revenue. The company sold 3.47 million Macs during the quarter (which was a record in itself), as well as 8.4 million iPhones 9.41 million iPods, and 3.27 million iPads (which were only launched during the quarter).

"It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple's history with iPhone 4," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. "iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year."

"We're really pleased to have generated over $4 billion of cash during the quarter," added Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer. "Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue of about $18 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $3.44"

Apple's gross margin was 39.1% compared to 40.9% a year ago. International sales accounted for 52% of the quarter’s revenue.

The entire release can be found here

Are YouTube Users Part of Google's Rumored "Google Me" Social Network by Default?

Over a year ago, Google announced that it would start requiring all people signing up for YouTube usernames to have a Google account. Now they're going to start requiring all users of YouTube that signed up prior to that to connect their accounts to Google accounts as well.

Here are the reasons Google gives for connecting YouTube accounts to Google accounts:

- Improved account security. The Google Account system is robust and will help reduce spam across the site; users will get a slew of security and safety features that Google has spent the past decade developing.

- A single account system. This may not mean much to anyone outside of the YouTube engineering team, but behind the scenes it’s extremely complicated to support two different account systems. Having all users on the same account system not only simplifies matters, but more important, it makes it much easier to use Google technologies to keep the site running smoothly (over two billion views a day and counting), as well as introduce new functionality.

 There has been a lot of talk about Google working on a new social network (often referred to as "Google Me"). We still don't know exactly what that's going to be all about, but when people assess the success/failure of Google's social media efforts, they often overlook that Google owns YouTube, which is essentially a giant social network (albeit one that revolves around video). Not everyone uses YouTube as a social network, but the more people that have Google accounts, the more people Google will be able to claim as part of its broader "social network".

As we have discussed numerous times, Google itself could really be seen as one giant social network, with different products representing different features. If you have a Google account, you are part of that social network, regardless of what "features" you may or may not use.

“Deadliest Catch” Game To Launch On Facebook

The Discovery Channel has partnered with social game company Hive Media, to develop a game based on the television show "Deadliest Catch."

The social media game is set to be released in November on Facebook. The game will be available only in North America.

"Deadliest Catch has always been one of our favorite Discovery Channel shows," said Brian Laing, CEO, Hive Media.

"The perils of the Bering Sea and the camaraderie shared by the ship captains and crews makes a great platform for building a social game."

The "Deadliest Catch" game will allow players to be captains of their own crab boats and navigate the Bering Sea to cast and harvest pots while attempting to profit in a dangerous environment as they work their way to the top of the leader board.

"Integrating the series into a branded social game is a great way to give Deadliest Catch fans an ongoing interactive experience," said Elizabeth Bakacs, Vice President of Licensing for Discovery Channel.

"We look forward to working with Hive Media to bring the real-world adventures of Deadliest Catch to social gaming."

The Facebook game will follow the launch of the Deadliest Catch console game this fall. It will complete a three part interactive gaming experience for Deadliest Catch fans, also including a mobile game. source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/

Hitwise Predicts Move Into Gaming For Google

Google's never been a predictable sort of company. Its focus on green energy, support for the Klingon language, and decision to set up beehives on corporate property are just a few examples of unusual behavior. But if Google acts in a rational manner, Hitwise believes the company will enter the gaming sector.

This isn't a random guess. In response to Google's acquisition of ITA Software, Heather Hopkins wrote, "We at Hitwise have been waiting for such an announcement for some time. In 2006 when Google Finance was launched, we looked at the top downstream industries from Google and noticed an obvious gap: Travel. Then again in 2008, when Google Health was launched we did the same analysis and pointed out the same gap."

And now that Google's filled the gap, Hopkins concluded, "[T]he next biggest downstream industry from Google.com is Games and Google does not yet have a presence in that industry. Stay tuned..."



The one problem with this prediction might be if Google thinks it already gave gaming a shot in the form of Lively. Lively didn't come close to entertaining the average person, though, instead flopping in obscurity.

NASA Adds New Features To Its Website

NASA has introduced new features to its NASA.gov website in an effort to offer better navigation and make it easier for users share information on Facebook and Twitter.

The new features on NASA.gov include:

*We added images to the 'What are people interested in?' box on the homepage.

*We changed the navigation on the homepage multimedia box so that the options are clearer within each panel of the box.

*We swapped the 'Connect' and 'About NASA' buttons in the top navigation bar to reduce confusion since we found several users intuitively saw 'Connect' and thought 'Contact' since the words are similar and that's a more standard placement for contact information.

*We pared down the 'Share' options at the top of pages from a list of hundreds to four-options which then expand out to the full list.

* We tweaked the information we provide when you share our pages on Facebook so that it shows a image to illustrate each page and video.

NASA also said it plans on updating its Twitter box on the homepage to make it easier to know where tweets are coming from. The agency is adding more Facebook and Digg integrations so users can "Like" its pages without sharing them on social networks. NASA said it will announce the improvements once they go live.

Marketing Perspective is Going to Have to Shift

The marketing perspective is going to have to shift. Whether you are living in the world of small businesses or global corporations recruiting talent, and then retaining that talent is becoming a priority. Effective internal marketing empowers employees to take on learning the ends and out of the company, the industry and how to work with their customers. Employees with a good understanding of the company vision will establish long term trusting relationships with customers and learned the ropes of the industry. When empowered employees speak with pride about the company, it’s value and have prepared elevator speeches about the brand.

Internal Marketing Makes Employees Happier

Happier employees make and keep happy customers.

“Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000” – The Pocket Guide to Defensive Branding

Education of employees is essential. Give them resources so that they clearly understand expectations and can perform their job with personal and professional satisfaction. Whether you are holding company meetings in person, or virtually, maintain a knowledge base or send out regular notifications — it isn’t enough. Market to to employees to keep their connection to the company strong, their understanding of the products, tools they use and their resources so that they perform at a level of excellence they are proud of. Communicate often, with consistency and consider offering on going training for all departments that focuses on increasing clarification of the company’s message.

Customer Service
No matter what media communication is happening customer service is all about building trust, connection and long term relationships. Empower both sides of the counter, phone or

Employee Recognition
Feature employees that are representing the brand well on and offline. Give examples of their work and support them professionally. Give employees strong examples of people that understand the brand, and how to communicate

Social Networks
There is an assumption that employees will communicate about their job, company and its brands in a professional manner. Make sure expectations are clear to what the company policy is.

Blogging
Believe it or not your employees are blogging. They are writing about their life experience. Spending 9+ hours a day at their job is a big part of their life. Expect that they will want to talk about their job and give tips and instruction on ways to communicate online.

Hold on to your towel, the marketing world is changing. The most important priority will not be just being competitive locally or globally but having a strong internal understanding of the company vision. Encourage and support employees to establish relationships and become knowledgeable in the industry. Empower employees with consistent resources that educate them about communication channels, representing the company and it’s culture. Be creative in your internal marketing strategies and make sure to offer plenty of channels for feedback. source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/

When Personalized Search and Relevance Collide

However, there are times when Google's system of personalization does get in the way, particularly with that starred results feature. When they appear, the starred results are generally (though not always) provided above all the rest. In some ways, this makes sense, because if you starred them yourself, you likely found them to be quality results. However, when you starred that result, you may not have done so with relevance to a specific query or topic in mind. You may have just liked the site and wanted to remember it.

In fact, most of the starred results at this point (given how new the starred results feature is) simply come from pages that have been bookmarked in Google Bookmarks (if you have been a user in the past). If this is the case, chances are that when you bookmarked a certain page, say a year ago, you didn't take into consideration that Google would one day use that bookmark as a personalized search result in a possibly unrelated query down the road. How could you have known?

There are plenty of times when these bookmarked/starred results do come in handy in a Google search. That said, they are not always the most relevant, and do not always deserve top rank on the SERP, even when they are given just that.

For example, if I perform a search for "matt cutts", his personal blog (which is the top organic listing) is probably the best result for that query, but since I have written about things Cutts has said in the past, and have a particular article bookmarked for my own reference, that article appears at the top of my results, over his blog. It's not THAT big a deal really. It doesn't take me long to look down and find his blog if that's what I'm looking for, but it does push the more relevant result down, and that isn't necessarily a good thing.

Google is now testing some list sharing features within Google Bookmarks. Given Google's increased focus on social web elements and how they fit into search (think social search, real-time search, Buzz, etc.), one can't help but wonder if Bookmarks will play an even greater role in Google's search product going forward.

Google Reader Lets You Track Changes on “Feedless” Sites

Ever wanted to track or monitor changes that happen on your favorite websites but could not do it because the sites don’t have feeds? Now you can do that with Google Reader. It now lets you create custom feed for those sites which don’t available feeds.

The process is similar when your adding subscriptions to your Google Reader account for sites with feeds. You simply add the url of the site into Google Reader’s “Add a subscription” box and then Google Reader will periodically visit this site to monitor changes and updates and then publish those using the customized feed for the site.

Unlike sites with published feeds, the customized feed that will appear on Google Reader for these sites with no feeds won’t look as good though. Here’s an example customized feed:

Not as good looking as your usual Google Reader item, right? Still good enough to at least give you a way to track changes to those sites without visiting them one by one.

Mozilla Says New Firefox 20% Faster Than Last Version

Mozilla has launched the latest version of its popular Firefox web browser - version 3.6. They say this version is a whopping 20% faster than version 3.5. New features in Firefox 3.6 include:

• Personas: Personalize the look of your Firefox by selecting new themes called Personas in a single click and without a restart
  
  
• Plugin Updater: To keep you safe from potential security vulnerabilities, Firefox will now detect out of date plugins
  
  
• Stability improvements: Firefox 3.6 significantly decreased crashes caused by third party software – all without sacrificing our extensibility in any way
  
  
• Form Complete: When filling out an online form, Firefox suggests information for fields based on your common answers in similar field
  
  
• Performance: Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness, and startup time
  
  
• Open Video and Audio: With the world’s best implementation of HTML 5 audio and video support, now video can be displayed full screen and supports poster frames

Here's a video from Mike Beltzner, Director of Firefox Development, who gives an overview of the new features

For developers, Firefox 3.6 supports the latest HTML5 specification, including the file API for local file handling, font support (in addition to OpenType and TrueType fonts, it supports the new Web Open Font Format), CSS gradients (linear and radical), and device orientation - it exposes the orientation of the laptop or device to web pages.

The browser is available for download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in over 70 languages, which Mozilla claims is more platforms and languages than any other browser. It can be found here.

Consumers Expected to Spend $6.2 Billion on Mobile Apps in 2010

Gartner has released some research findings that indicate consumers will spend $6.2 billion in 2010 in mobile application stores. Meanwhile, advertising revenue is expected to generate $0.6 billion worldwide.

According to Gartner, mobile app stores will exceed 4.5 billion downloads in 2010, eight out of ten of which will be free. Gartner also forecasts worldwide downloads in mobile application stores to surpass 21.6 billion by 2013, and free downloads to account for 82% of all downloads in 2010 (87% in 2013).

"As smartphones grow in popularity and application stores become the focus for several players in the value chain, more consumers will experiment with application downloads," said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner. "Games remain the No. 1 application, and mobile shopping, social networking, utilities and productivity tools continue to grow and attract increasing amounts of money."

"Growth in smartphone sales will not necessarily mean that consumers will spend more money, but it will widen the addressable market for an offering that will be advertising-funded," added Baghdassarian. "The value chain of the application stores will evolve as rules are set and broken in an attempt to find the most profitable business model for all parties involved."

"Application stores will be a core focus throughout 2010 for the mobile industry and applications themselves will help determine the winner among mobile devices platforms," said Carolina Milanesi, another research director at Gartner. "Consumers will have a wide choice of stores and will seek the ones that make it easy for them to discover applications they are interested in and make it easy to pay for them when they have to. Developers will have to consider carefully not only which platform to support but also which store to promote their applications in."

Some of Gartners numbers have been brought into question by another research firm, comScore. In reference to a Gartner claim that Apple App Store downloads accounted for 99.4% of all mobile app downloads in 2009, comScore analyst Alistair Hill is quoted as saying, "I think somebody's missed something out on the maths there...I find that hard to believe. We know iPhone users buy a lot more apps than anybody else, but that still doesn't work."

Still, we haven't seen anything solid to dispute the claim. But we might see something surface soon.

source: http://www.webpronews.com/

5 More Reasons Why IE6 Must Die

It’s no secret that we don’t like Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), the outdated 10+ year old browser still used by 15-25% of people on the web. Last year, we called for IE6 to die so that the web could move on with new innovations such as HTML 5.

Now Internet Explorer, specifically IE6, is under fire again after a critical IE vulnerability was implicated for the attack on Google’s infrastructure by Chinese hackers. While IE6 criticism is not a new phenomenon, last week’s events give those of us who advocate for the abolition of IE6 (myself included) new ammunition.

Whether you work for a company that won’t get rid of IE6 or have parents that just don’t see the need to ugprade, here are five new reasons to upgrade or switch browsers:

1. Your security and your company’s security are at risk: There’s no other way to lay it out: if the security of Google (), Yahoo, and around 20 other companies were compromised due to people still running IE6, then your security is at risk too. Upgrading after a hacker uses this exploit to steal your information is simply too late, especially if you hold sensitive customer data.

2. World governments are suggesting you switch browsers: Both Germany and France have issued warnings about Internet Explorer (), asking citizens to switch to prevent the same type of breach that affected Google.

3. Even Microsoft wants you to drop IE6: The Microsoft Security Research & Defense Blog specifically addressed the flaw and the risk of attack by platform. The most important part of the post was that they “recommend users of IE6 on Windows XP upgrade to a new version of Internet Explorer and/or enable DEP.”

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has asked people to voluntarily upgrade, but it is the first time that it’s been in response to an exploit or vulnerability. Think of it like a recall: would you keep driving a car that Toyota, Ford, or GM says could malfunction? Don’t make the same mistake with your computer’s security.

4. Not wanting to upgrade from Windows XP isn’t a legitimate excuse anymore: One way to delete IE6 is to upgrade your OS — both Windows Vista () and Windows () 7 run upgraded versions of the IE browser.

We understood why people didn’t want to upgrade when their choice was Windows Vista, but now that a very stable, solid, and secure upgrade is on the market (Windows 7), there’s no excuse not to upgrade. Yes, it’ll cost you up front, but it’s far cheaper than having your data stolen.

5. This will not be the last massive IE6 security breach: This flaw was unknown before Google’s groundbreaking China announcement. And it’s not the first flaw ever found with the browser — there are at least 142 vulnerabilities in IE6, 22 of which are not yet patched. Would you use armor that had 142 weak spots?

Last week’s series of events drove home just how dangerous and idiotic it is to run the long-broken IE6 browser. It should be a wake-up call to IT departments and users around the world: if you keep running a browser from 2001, you are throwing your online security right out the window.

source: http://mashable.com/2010/01/18/5-more-reasons-why-ie6-must-die/

Google Will Stop Censoring Search Results in China

Google has issued an official statement regarding its business operations in China, specifically its Chinese search portal – Google.cn.

Google told Chinese authorities that it will stop censoring search results on the Chinese Google site. And depending on how things will turn out, Google might later be forced to shut down Google.cn.

In a long post at its official blog site, Google gave three recent discoveries/incidents that prompted its decision to stop censoring search results from its Chinese site.

The first one being the fact, it was found out that recent attacks on its corporate IT infrastructure originated from China and that those attacks were not just meant for Google alone. Some other business companies were also targeted.

Making things worsts is that based on Google’s investigation, it was also found out that the main objective of the attackers was to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Although the attackers were not successful in achieving their target, thanks to Google’s high level of infrastructure security on its products, two Gmail accounts were jeopardized although the activity was limited only to non-essential matters and not the content of the emails.

And worst of all has got to be the fact that Google also found out that even accounts of U.S., China and Europe human rights activities were accessed by third parties through malware, phising and other malicious activities.

Given these conditions, Google has no recourse but to stop censoring the search results on its Chinese site. But that is of course if Google and the Chinese authorities will agree. If not, then that’s the time when Google will be force to close its Chinese site.

source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/

How Social Media Has Changed Us

Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen social media galvanize thousands over politics, create as many industries as it has destroyed, and offer an abundance of visual and audio entertainment. But has all this incredible change actually changed us, or just the world we live in?

Below are some areas in which social media has had lasting, and arguably permanent effects on the ways in which we live. The question is, are these changes all for the better?

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Child Literacy

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It stands to reason that children who read and write more are better at reading and writing. And writing blog posts, status updates, text messages, instant messages, and the like all motivate children to read and write. Last month, The National Literacy Trust released the results of a survey of over 3000 children. They observed a correlation between children’s engagement with social media and their literacy. Simply put, social media has helped children become more literate. Indeed, Eurostat recently published a report drawing a correlation between education and online activity, which found that online activity increased with the level of formal activity (socio-economic factors are, of course, potentially at play here as well).

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Ambient Intimacy

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Lisa Reichelt, a user experience consultant in London coined the very pleasant term “ambient intimacy.” It describes the way in which social media allows you to “… keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn’t usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible.”

Consider the many communications technologies through history — the telephone, Morse code, semaphore, carrier pigeons, smoke signals — they are all fairly inconvenient and labor intensive. Lisa has hit on the idea that communication has become so convenient that it’s actually become ambient around us. It surrounds us wherever we want it, not necessarily when it wants us. We dip into it whenever we like.

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Knowledge Was Power

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From his Meditationes Sacrae, published in 1597, Francis Bacon was paraphrased as saying “knowledge is power.” Fundamentally, the more you understand about life, the more chance you have at success. But these days, Wikipedia () and Google () have democratized information to the point where anyone is able to acquire the knowledge they may want.

As a case in point, I had never even heard of Meditationes Sacrae until I looked up the term “knowledge is power” on Wikipedia. In Bacon’s time, the only people that had access to books and the literacy to unlock the wisdom within were the wealthy with the time and inclination to learn.

Of course, books weren’t the only source of knowledge. Consider blacksmiths, dressmakers, cobblers or sailors who passed their skills and techniques from mother to daughter, from father to son. Back then, the friction that held people back from learning was low literacy, a lack of access to books and very little time. Now, that friction is almost non-existent. That is because of both the ability of computers to replicate information for distribution, and the the way that Google, Wikipedia and blogs have empowered people to share what they know. Now, the only real friction that exists is our own desire for knowledge. It’s there for you — if you want it.

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The Reinvention of Politics

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A recent report by PEW found signs that social networks may be encouraging younger people to get involved in politics. You only need look at Twitter’s () recent impact on the Iran elections, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and even the election of Barack Obama to see that more and more people are getting involved in politics and are feeling they can make a difference.

One of the most popular blogs on the web, The Huffington Post, is mainly political. Politics has a fast pace, and that lends itself well to social media. UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown said in June last year that because of the Internet, “foreign policy can no longer be the province of just a few elites.” Twitter even postponed an upgrade because of the important role it was playing in the Iran () elections.

These are all signs of both social media’s growing influence in politics, and the growing interest in politics from users of social media.

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Marketing Flux

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Marketing and advertising is transforming itself from an industry reliant on mass market channels to one which must embrace the power of the consumer and (attempt to) engage in conversations. The traditional approach of wide reach and repetitive messaging is now being replaced by many much smaller, niche and people-centric activities. Advertising isn’t dying, it’s merely changing form. We now have more power and more choice.

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News as Cultural Currency

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We’re no longer lazy consumers of passive messages. Instead we’re active participants. We now get news through the network we’ve created, and the news we pass to one another says something about us. It tells others what we’re interested in and what’s important to us. We used to call this gossip — and to a certain extent it still is — but unless you were a journalist at a local daily, the amplification that’s now possible through the likes of Twitter, Digg () or StumbledUpon hasn’t been experienced before.

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Conclusion

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Clearly there are skeptics. Susan Greenfield thinks that social networking is turning us into babies, shrinking our attention spans, our ability to empathize, and eroding our identity. She even suggests a correlation between the rise in prescriptions for drugs used to treat ADHD with an increase of time spent at computers. Similarly, Vincent Nichols, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster recently suggested that social networking causes increasingly “transient relationships,” is “dehumanising” community life and, as a consequence, we are “losing social skills.”

I think they couldn’t be further from the truth. Anyone with the slightest experience of using social media knows that it’s about being more social. We are more engaged with friends, we are more literate, more connected, more open to creating new relationships, and generally more interested in the world around us.

source: http://mashable.com/2010/01/07/social-media-changed-us/