Foursquare Updates Privacy And Makes Service Changes

Foursquare has sent an email to all users that describes updates and changes to its privacy policy and overall service that will happen later this month.

At the moment, usernames on profiles are shown with a first name and just the first initial of a surname (e.g. Daniel B.). But towards the end of January, the location-based social platform will show full first and last names.

The email said that users can edit their names by changing it under the “settings” tab. “We get emails every day saying that it’s confusing. So, with this change, full names are going to be public.”

Companies and business will now also be able to see more thorough details of those who have checked in throughout each day.

These companies can currently only see those who have checked-in during the previous three hours. The update will allow them to see statistics for check-ins that happen throughout the whole day.

Foursquare have also released a “Privacy 101” document that shows the social networks privacy policies in “an easy-to-read way” with businesses hoping to make privacy policies easier to understand.
 
The changes and updates are planned to go ahead on January 28th 2013.

What do you think about the updates to Foursquare?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below

What’s Next For Facebook Advertising?

Facebook has reportedly begun developing a
 video advertising service which autoplays in the news feed, regardless of the users activity on the site.

According to Ad Age, Facebook is planning to have the service out by April next year, and will offer 15 second slots to Facebook video advertisers to display their adverts in the news feed.

These adverts will play across all devices and will begin automatically, requiring users to pause the video if they don’t want to watch it.

Facebook’s controversial proposal has immediately been condemned, both for its aggressive commercialisation of what was originally a social media site, and for its over-similarity to what many believe is the bane of internet browsing: pop-up advertising.

The service would greatly benefit video advertisers,  they would be able to target their highly visible adverts at specific demographics. There would, however, surely be a backlash from users, as such aggressive advertising would completely change the Facebook experience.

Only a day after news of the video advertising service was released, Facebook announced that it was putting a hold on the development of their external ad network for mobile devices.

The proposed advertising network utilised user information garnered on Facebook to target specific demographics with adverts off-site and on other apps.
“We are pausing our mobile ads test off of Facebook”, spokesperson Brandon McCormick told All Things D. “While the results we have seen and the feedback from partners has been positive, our focus is on scaling ads in mobile news feed before ads off of Facebook. We have learned a lot from this test that will be useful in the future.”

Reading between the lines of this statement, it seems that although Facebook’s external advertising service has a lucrative future, its testing will have an indefinite hiatus as Facebook try to perfect its in-app mobile advertising.

However, it could also be inferred that, in the aftermath of criticism concerning Instagram’s policy change, Facebook are unwilling to evoke their users’ wroth further by proposing to use their information offsite.

Meanwhile, there has been a significant legal amendment in the United States, which now allows advertising to be targeted to children under 13 – the age which, coincidentally, happens to be the minimum cut-off for Facebook membership.

The relevant extract in the COPPA (Child Online Privacy Protection Act) reads as follows:
“The definition of personal information requiring parental notice and consent before collection now includes “persistent identifiers” that can be used to recognize users over time and across different websites or online services.  However, no parental notice and consent is required when an operator collects a persistent identifier for the sole purpose of supporting the website or online service’s internal operations, such as contextual advertising, frequency capping, legal compliance, site analysis, and network communications.  Without parental consent, such information may never be used or disclosed to contact a specific individual, including through behavioral advertising, to amass a profile on a specific individual, or for any other purpose.”

Many speculate that this could lead to Facebook lowering its minimum age requirement.

What do you think of Facebook’s proposed advertising changes?

5 Reasons Why Not Using Social Media Management in Your Business Is Insane!

A study by Manta showed that 42% of small businesses said that 25% of their new customers came from social media sites so isn't now the time to start thinking about social media management.
For some reason there are many businesses which are still reticent to enter into the social media forum in anyway.

This article is for those people, let me give you 5 reasons why you'd be mad not to invest in social media management for your business.

1. SEO
Even novices to the game realise that if you are online you probably want your website coming on the first page of Google when someone enters a product of service that you provide. So if I told you that social media management would help do that for you, I guess you'd be interested. S.E.O done in the right way basically means getting your website to be the most relevant site on the internet for the things people are looking for. If this happens then Google sticks you at the top of the rankings because all they are trying to do is to match people who are searching for a particular thing with that particular thing or information on that particular thing.

It stands to reason that if lots of people are talking about your service, product, website etc then it indicates that your site is relevant and useful, Google then wants to help get people to that site. Social Media management isn't the only thing that you need but if you have a strong relevant social brand presence then it isn't going to hurt is it?

2. Building Trust
Nowadays customers do a lot more research about who they are going to do business with, whether that is buying a product or a service. Most of that research is done on line so having a social media presence will help you engage with your customers in a way which helps build trust between you and your potential customer.

3. Puts A Face To The Brand
The old sales adage that people buy from people is still true even when buying online. It takes a lot of trust to buy from someone you don't know and this is exactly what you are asking people to do from your website. The more you can build a personality, the more people feel they know you and the more they trust you. Once people trust you, you can sell them almost anything (within reason of course). Look at Richard Branson, we all feel we know him even though we have never met him, hence when Virgin launches anything we feel we can trust the brand (i.e. him). Social Media Management means that we can now build this personality rapidly and at low cost but it does also mean that you can just copy and paste content. You have to give value, let people know you a real person and are interested in the things that they are. There is no better way for you to connect with your potential customers than social media.

4. IT's Where The Customers Are
The facts speak for themselves

• 2 Billion Internet users
• Last Year there were 300 billion searches performed and over 500 billion products sold online

Today being online doesn't just mean having a website; you need to be doing social media as well otherwise you will get eaten up by the competition.

• 80% of all the world is on a social network
• FACEBOOK - 1 billion active users and 500 million average visits a day
• TWITTER - 200 million members and 33 million visits a day.

This leads into point number 4

5. It's Where Your Competitors Are
The stats above mean that whilst you may be reticent to go online your competitors definitely aren't. Facebook's revenue from advertising was $3.8 billion and that could be $5.2 billion in 2012. Even the UK government have spent £100,000 to promote Britain as a great place to visit. The thing is, people don't tend to spend that much advertising on any platform unless they can see that it works.

One would hope that these 5 reasons alone have convinced you why not using social media management in your business is sheer madness.