Social Networking: More New Developments

The last month has seen an enormous amount of developments in the social media world. Everything from geolocation to “like” everything, the world of social networking is evolving and doing it quickly. Here is a recap of the most important things that have happened in the last month or so.

1. Promoted Tweets – Launched by Twitter as a way to develop a revenue stream, promoted tweets allows advertisers to highlight specific tweets to drive traffic and interest for products, websites, promotions or simply their Twitter page. Promoted tweets, launched with a select group of advertisers, will allow advertisers to promote themselves through a tweet once they are opened to the public. There will be a built-in checks and balance system for ads that don’t engage users. Promoted tweets of an advertiser will disappear if the ads don’t resonate with users. If nobody favorites the ad, or replies to it etc., it will simply go away.
    
2. Facebook “like” – You might have noticed when you were on Facebook recently that the “become a fan” button was replaced by “like”. You might have also been on CNN or any number of other sites that are already linked with Facebook which will allow you to “like” a certain article, product, song, etc. You might have also seen a stream on those sites that tell you what your friends are reading or “liking”. This is a bid by Facebook to make the entire web social, and some might argue all of us would like that, and have it tailored to our likes and dislikes, which leads us to Facebook Open Graph.
    
3. Facebook Open Graph – This could change a whole lot in the future. The “like” functionality actually lives under the Open Graph project. Essentially, what Open Graph boils down to is a mapping of everything on the Internet and how these maps interconnect to each other. It could likely alter how everything is done online. Site could personalize content to us and provide a larger scope of whatever we are looking at. This could affect everything from shopping to online search. Could you imagine search based on a social graph? Try SEOing that.
    
4. Geolocation – The last big thing in the last month has been geo-location. That’s not to say that geolocation hasn’t been around for awhile, but it appears to be coming into its own this year with Facebook and Twitter making investments. Have you heard of Foursquare or Gowalla? Well they are leading the charge as we speak. For local businesses (especially restaurants, bars and other areas where people hang out or frequent), I would suggest you look into them. They are opportunities to drive repeat and new business.

EGC Digital and the Innovation Lab at The EGC Group are currently researching and determining the best use of these up and coming services for our clients. We look forward to reporting back to you the integration of these tools in the near future.

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