Facebook F8 Conference: increments, no blasts
In the latest annual conference, Facebook has announced some new features that will be available later this year on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and Whatsapp. A peep into what is in store:
- A feature to clear history from Facebook account, about information received from various websites and apps.
- Camera to get new capabilities on Facebook, which includes turning pics into 3D.
- A dating feature on Facebook app, that would make it possible to date as on Tinder.
- AR (augmented reality) effects on Instagram and Messenger.
- AI enhancements and improved bot capabilities on Messenger 2.0.
- Translation of messages on Messenger.
- Video chatting feature on Instagram.
- Group calling on Whatsapp, perhaps both - audio and video calling.
Google showcases its AI prowess, improvements across apps
- A more capable and human-like Google Assistant, accompanied by Duplex - which could call on your behalf!
- New version of Android, Android P.
- New features on Google News, Google Photos, Gmail and Google Maps.
Non-profit organizations now like to directly connect with the public, less through the media
A University of Kansas study finds that international non-profit organizations have shifted their use of channels of online communication and target audience over a decade.
While in 2007, for online communication with people, these organizations used their websites, followed by blogs, podcasts, videocasts and wikis, they now use their own site followed by Social Media. Within social media, Facebook comes first, followed by Twitter, blogs and Instagram.
The shift in the publics that they target is more pronounced. Earlier, the focus was on promoting the organization's image, fund-raising and the media, and now the focus is on reaching the general public, potential donors, existing donors and the media in that order. Reaching the media gets a low priority now.
The study covered 150 non-profit professionals in top international NGO organizations based in the US.
More on the study can be seen here.
Twitter wants you to change password, but why?
Twitter has issued a cautionary advice on its blog, asking account holders to change their password because it has found a bug that logs passwords in the system before it is masked.
Twitter says, it has not found anybody having misused the logs. Once it discovered the bug, it proactively deleted all such internal logs is plugging the loophole. It says,
Out of an abundance of caution, we ask that you consider changing your password on all services where you’ve used this password.
Another proof that our data with tech biggie is not guaranteed to be in safe hands.
The blog post can be visited here.
Cambridge Analytica closes down
The controversial firm that is supposed to have used Facebook data for influencing voters in many countries, has closed down. Knowledgeable people are not sure whether it would not arise in a new avatar.
A takeaway from Hootsuite study: socialization helps SEO
A recent study has validated the impression that engaging, sharing on social media really helps in better search rankings, and it happens directly - not just because more links get distributed through social accounts.
The researchers have also some advice for publishers and marketers. They say, quality of content and backlinks matters as much as their numbers. And paid promotion really helps SEO.
Yes, social can help with SEO. But that shouldn’t give you a free pass to over-post and spam people’s feeds. If you do that, you risk annoying followers. And then they might ignore your posts, or worse, stop following you entirely.
Quality of posts—not quantity—is key. Yes, regular posting is important, but if you’re not offering your audience value there’s no point.
Remember, it might only take one new backlink to significantly improve the search rank of a URL (depending on how competitive the keyword is and how authoritative the site is that links to your own). If you impress the right person enough to share your content on their website, you’ll see a boost in search rank and search visibility.
Social marketers should also take note of the implications of paid promotion on SEO. Indeed, our findings show that paid promotion has nearly double the SEO benefit of organic promotion.
SEO should be thoughtfully integrated into your broader social marketing strategy, but it should not be the driving force. If you focus on creating and sharing quality content, you’ll be in good shape. Quality is, after all, the number one ranking factor in Google.
