The study, published by the Pew Research Center on Thursday, found that almost half of American users click on news in their Facebook feeds. Since 64% of adults in the United States use Facebook, that means one in three Americans consumes news on Facebook.

However, only 22% of the 30% who get their news on Facebook think the site is a useful source for information about the world, and only 4% of those think Facebook is “the most important way” to get their news.

“People go to Facebook to share personal moments — and they discover the news almost incidentally,” Amy Mitchell, Pew Research Center’s director of journalism research, said in a statement. “The serendipitous nature of news on Facebook may actually increase its importance as a source of news and information, especially among those who do not follow the news closely.”

The study quotes one respondent, who said he believes “Facebook is a good way to find out news without actually looking for it.”

The importance of the social network also depends on how much of a news junkie the user is.

Among those who click on news links in their Facebook news feeds, just 38% of heavy news followers think the social network is “an important way to get the news,” but among those who follow news “less often,” 47% consider Facebook as an important source.

On Monday, Facebook announced that it was driving 170% more traffic to media sites this year than in 2012.

This is the first of a series of studies on social media and news published by Pew in collaboration with the Knight Foundation. For this study, Pew surveyed 5,173 Americans ages 18 and older. You can read the full report here (.PDF).

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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The company did not immediately respond to our request for comment on the cause or extent of the outage, but Downrightnow.com shows there has been a “likely service disruption” for the better part an hour. LinkedIn acknowledged that it is “currently experiencing some issues” in a statement provided to Mashable and in the tweet below:

Our site is currently experiencing some issues. Our team is actively working on it. We’ll keep you updated here. Thanks for your patience.

— LinkedIn Help (@LinkedInHelp) October 23, 2013

LinkedIn isn’t the only social network to experience problems this week. Facebook suffered a prolonged outage on Monday morning, which prevented users from posting and engaging with posts on the site.

Image: Creative Commons, Nan Palmero

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A new tool, offered through Twitter’s API, allows marketers to send targeted tweets to specific geographic locations. For example, a brand could send a tweet to followers in the United States and a separate tweet to users in Japan from the same account. The tweets will not show up to followers in the brand’s Twitter timeline unless those followers reside in the country targeted.

This capability makes it possible for brands to consolidate their Twitter accounts, eliminating the need for different accounts for various countries or languages. It also lets brand target messages more directly to consumers by sending offers or promotions to followers in a specific region or create customized content for a specific country.

With roughly 77% of Twitter’s monthly active users located outside of the U.S., the ability for brands to connect with international users will be key to helping Twitter continually grow its advertising revenue moving forward.

The ability to geo-target messages is available to partners with access to Twitter’s Ads API, which was updated a few weeks ago. London-based TBG, a social media ad management company, first rolled out a country-specific tweeting tool on Oct. 4, although its customers aren’t utilizing the feature yet, according to a spokesperson.

Last week, Austin-based Spredfast, which offers tools that allow clients to better manage multiple social media accounts, became the first U.S.-based company to offer geo-targeted tweets.

“We think this is just the start,” said Jim Rudden, CMO of Spredfast. “The whole focus is on, ‘How do we get relevance in the news feed?’ The more targeted you can get, the better.”

For brands, the benefit is minimizing the number of social accounts to manage, creating a more direct funnel for consumer feedback. Brands would no longer need to manage or monitor regional Twitter handles; all messaging would come from the same account, so all feedback, comments or complaints would be directed to the same place.

However, compacting a brand’s Twitter handles also means consolidating a brand’s current followers and convincing users to follow a different Twitter handle (the brand’s main one).

TBG hopes brands will be willing to look past this issue, even if the process of shifting to a single account takes six months to a year.

“[One handle] is more efficient and it makes it easier for users to find you,” said Ian Cassidy, TBG’s executive creative director, in a statement to Mashable. “It also means that brands that have a global Twitter account can test localized, more specific messaging in different countries, which should increase engagement.”

As brands start to test out this new technology in the coming months, we’ll find out exactly how specific those messages can get.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Mashable composite; Flickr, Kevin M. Gill

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Facebook also disclosed that from September 2012 to September 2013, Time’s referral traffic rose 208%, BuzzFeed’s increased by 855% and Bleacher Report experienced a boost of 1,081%. Facebook also announced a feature called Stories to Share for page managers of media firms that recommends which stories to share on Facebook.

Andy Mitchell, director of partnerships for Facebook, attributes much of the growth in referrals to improvements in Facebook’s News Feed algorithm. “We’re getting better at showing the right story at people who are interested in it,” he says. In addition, Facebook has shared best practices with media firms, which help them post more effectively, he says.

New research from SimpleReach bolsters the claim. SimpleReach found that Facebook drives more traffic to media sites than any other social media platform.

Meanwhile, Facebook had some advice to media firms: Post more. Facebook worked with 29 media sites over a seven-day period recently and found a greater number of posts “frequently” increases referral traffic by more than 80%. During that test period the site posted 57% more articles, which netted an 89% increase in outbound clicks to their domains plus 10% more Likes on average. The number of net fans per page rose 49%.

That said, Mitchell does acknowledge that the law of diminishing returns applies: At some point, you can overload fans with too many posts. Facebook doesn’t have a recommended number of posts. Mitchell says media properties have to determine a figure on their own.

Along the same lines, Stories to Share helps those media firms figure out which stories to post next. The recommendation widget is pretty straightforward: It analyzes your homepage to see which stories people are sharing the most on Facebook even though the media property hasn’t yet shared it through its Facebook account. That feature is going live on Monday with 1,5000 news organizations. Stories to Share had been in beta with a handful of news organizations (the company declined to identify which ones) over the past few weeks.

The emphasis on media partners comes as Facebook has recently revved competition with the much-smaller Twitter for ad-spending opportunities related to real-time marketing like second-screen conversations and trending news items. Encouraging news organizations to post more often will aid a Trending Articles feature that seems to be a likely next move for the company.

Image: Getty/KIMIHIRO HOSHINO

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The study, “Big Five Personality Traits Reflected in Job Applicants’ Social Media Postings,” identified links between job applicants’ online behaviors and characteristics that might impact their work performance.

Unfiltered personal communications and photos, comments about others, and references to alcohol and drug use are the key indicators of personality traits that job applicants truly possess — traits that may actually suggest a candidate will be a great hire, according to the study, which was conducted by researchers in North Carolina State University’s department of psychology and published recently in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking.

According to the researchers, a job applicant’s social media activities reflect the following five personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience.

To get a better idea of what social media postings reveal about personality traits, researchers focused on two broad posting types: those that demonstrated badmouthing behavior, and those that referenced drug and alcohol use.

For instance, those who rated highly in agreeableness and conscientiousness were unlikely to badmouth others in social media, the study found. This doesn’t mean, however, that conscientiousness has any bearing on posts that employers often consider red flags.

“Companies often scan a job applicant’s Facebook profile to see whether there is evidence of drug or alcohol use, believing that such behavior means the applicant is not ‘conscientious,’ or responsible and self-disciplined,” Dr. Lori Foster Thompson, co-author of the study and a professor of psychology at NCSU, said in a statement. However, the researchers said there is no significant correlation between conscientiousness and a job applicant’s propensity to post about drug or alcohol use on Facebook.

“This means companies are eliminating some conscientious job applicants based on erroneous assumptions regarding what social media behavior tells us about the applicants,” said Will Stoughton, lead author of the study and a Ph.D. student at NCSU.

Extraversion is also a trait that’s often misunderstood. Consider, for instance, sales and marketing positions that require candidates to have extroverted personalities. Based on data presented in the study, extroverts are more likely to post about drugs or alcohol on Facebook; thus, employers will be limiting their sales and marketing pool of candidates if they automatically red flag those who exhibit drug- or alcohol-related behaviors on social media, the study found.

“If employers plan to keep using social media to screen job applicants, this study indicates they may want to focus on eliminating candidates who badmouth others — not necessarily those who post about drinking beer,” Stoughton said.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Jason A. Howie

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A lack of interaction tells the tale. Clearly you paid good money to expose lots of people to this particular piece of content, but most gave it little mind.

That doesn’t have to be the case. There are people who do nothing but study the performance of social advertising all day. We talked to some and gleaned a few insights. If you want to run an ad with a halfway decent chance of getting a social lift, check out these pro tips.

1. Think About Who You Are Targeting

While we’ve established that an ad with no Likes is an embarrassing failure, it’s also true that an ad with a lot of interaction from the wrong people is a waste of pixels. Lucky for you, Twitter and Facebook both have sophisticated turnkey programs that let you target users by demographic, location and affinities, among other variables.

For instance, say you wanted to target all the feta cheese fans in New Jersey. Facebook lets you do just that.

As Peter Goodman, VP of Social.com at Salesforce.com, notes, a successful social media ad program relies on good customer data. Who is really buying your products? What are they interested in? “You really need to start to think more deeply about these amazing targeting features,” he says. “Concentrate on the demo you know are going to work and then build that out to scale.”

How to do that? Back in March, Facebook released Lookalike Audiences, a program that uses Facebook’s data to identify people who aren’t currently fans of your site, but who have similar characteristics to your fans.

2. Not Every Ad Has to Be Social

Take a look at most advertising you see. Is it something you would want to pass on to a friend? No. That’s because most ads are not entertaining in themselves, but are either formulated to propose a call to action or as a branding exercise. “If you think of the typical ad with the shot of the car driving on the mountain against the sunset, there’s nothing particularly social about it,” says David Berkowitz, CMO of the marketing agency MRY. “You have to consider if there’s anything social about it.”

There doesn’t have to be. A very targeted ad with a call to action will be social because people seeing the ad are in the market for the product or service. Similarly, a branding ad might go over well with rabid fans of the brand.

Jimmy Kimmel notwithstanding, creating a viral video, though, is nearly impossible Berkowitz says. Jim Squires, director of ad product marketing at Facebook, says that video probably wouldn’t do much for your business anyway. “Stay on point,” he says. “Funny cat videos may pull likes, but they won’t help you achieve a business objective. Make sure you’re crisp on the business objective — as you would be for any ad campaign — and create content that is relevant and supports your story.”

3. Social Ads Don’t Have to Look Like Ads

Facebook’s Promoted Posts and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets look more like communication with consumers than ads. That’s by design. The top social networks are pushing a native advertising experience, which translates roughly to branded content.

“Take the time to do great creative — asset planning and creation is often overlooked for this new medium,” says Squires. “Sharing thoughtful, timely, iconic pieces is important, since it’s being seen alongside compelling content from friends and family.” At Facebook, they call these interactions “stories.” Squires says marketers should think of them the same way: “Tell stories –- people remember stories, not facts.”

Sometimes social ads don’t even need to be ads. Berkowitz points to the Audi Instagram feed as an instance of non-advertising advertising. “Almost every image has an Audi logo in it,” he says. “And there are thousands of interactions with each post.”

4. Optimize for Mobile

Obviously, a desktop-first model for advertising won’t work in a world in which Facebook’s mobile ad revenues are on track to supplant its take from desktop. How do you make sure your ad works as well on a phone or tablet as it does on the web? Says Squire: “Make sure posts are succinct — your key point should be made in the first 90 characters — and ensure that any photo or video works well on mobile.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Red Bull, Facebook

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Those who have used Ads Manager and Power Editor in the past know that neither tool is the simplest or most logically designed. Previously, ad buyers were asked to choose from a range of ad options and then select their campaign objectives and optimization methods.

Now, more reasonably, advertisers are first asked to identify their objectives. That could be a sales conversion on a website, for example, or an increase in mobile app downloads. Other objectives include increasing total page Likes, increasing engagement with particular posts or a Facebook app, boosting in-store Offer claims and upping RSVPs to a Facebook event.

Once an objective has been identified, Facebook guides advertisers to the most appropriate ad. It’s up to the advertiser to choose where that ad appears — in the News Feed, for example, or alongside it.

In addition to the new ad-buying interface, users can also now upload multiple images for a single campaign, allowing five different ads to run at once. In the analytics dashboard — also part of the overhaul — they’ll be able to quickly assess which images are performing best. They can also easily sort all of their campaigns to see which delivers the best conversion value.

Although their interfaces are the same, the Power Editor will continue to offer additional functionality to ad buyers. In addition to the new streamlined buying process, Power Editor users can also manually select their ads.

“Ad managers know how to buy ads already; we don’t want to make ad changes forced,” David Baser, product manager at Facebook, said.

Images: iStock, hh5800 and Facebook
Source : Mashable 

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On Wednesday, the social network released a new version of Page Insights, a dashboard that allows page managers to monitor traffic and engagement. The tool’s newest version breaks down engagement metrics into individual tabs, such as check-ins, likes and the number of people engaged. Managers can also compare these metrics to previous weeks or months to better understand how engagement on their brand page is changing.

The updated Insights tool also lets managers view positive (i.e. likes, shares) and negative (i.e. blocks, reports) interactions side-by-side to determine which content is performing well with visitors. The hope is that these new features will enable managers to populate their pages with content that Facebook users most want to see, making the experience better for both parties.

Facebook created a video — which you can watch, here — explaining the new features, and how page managers can use them.

Image: Acid Pix
Source : Mahable

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Some businesses say otherwise. Wixon Jewelers Online Marketing Director Jayme Pretzloff thinks that social media is going to be more important for sales than any other metric in 2013, as the platform continues to receive user acceptance and integrates into the overall marketing strategy.

70% consumers suggested that social media didn’t have any impact on their purchase decision in 2011, a percentage that was cut in half in 2012. Such statistics provide helpful insights to marketers as they look to make the most out of their time and investment.

Policies of social media companies also had a significant impact on referrals. There was a time when a post on Facebook fan page was seen by every follower/fan of the brand, but after policy changes, any post shared by a brand today is only seen by 10% of the total number of people following the page. Unfortunately, and fortunately for Facebook, you now need to pay for greater outreach.

This also shows that just because a particular social network has a huge user base doesn’t mean it’s an ideal place to get referrals. For example, tech sites usually concentrate a lot on Facebook, but they would be better off with Google+.

Likewise, a DIY jewelry brand may not get any retweets, but drive loads of traffic from Pinterest. Trying and testing the engagement ratio (the percentage of fans responding/number of fans present on the page) on different sites can help your brand to create a better online experience.

It is also important to note at this point that though referrals through social media are crucial for brand awareness, you shouldn’t give a wide berth to other referral resources. Doing so would be a BIG mistake. This is because social media doesn’t have the same level of intimacy as other sources of referrals like face-to-face networking, phone call, live chat etc.

The right approach

Some brands are smart enough to use all sources. For example, Blinds.com, told us “We encourage customers to refer Blinds.com on social media, and we also invite customers to contact us via phone or live video chat if they have any questions about our products. Referrals are important to us, as is customer retention; over 60% of our business comes from referral or repeat customers.” Food for thought.

However, other forms of referral networking can turn out to be inefficient, which is the main reason why social media referrals have a future in business marketing. It’s not a surprise to see businesses, especially new ones, struggle at networking events. The end result can be hours spent at a networking, only to walk away with a couple of business cards (Zoinks).

Social media, when being used as a major referral tool, should be supported by creative and relevant content. Businesses that establish themselves as credible and trustworthy providers of fun, inspiring and highly engaging content will be able to reach thousands of prospects through social channels. It requires a significant amount of time and investment, so it’s time that you take a closer look at your customer preferences and content sharing strategy.

Photo Credit: Social Media Referrals/shutterstock

Source: socialmediatoday.com

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In order to make the most of the available space, we took a look at how you can optimize your avatars and cover photos on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+.

Read our guidelines below, which include the optimum sizes for imagery across all sites, and some handy tips and tricks to bear in mind when choosing the right photographs.

Facebook

Facebook profile photos are cropped square, so we advise you to use an image that is already in this ratio — that way, you can avoid hastily cropping it right after you upload it. Profile pics are displayed at 160 x 160 pixels, but the image you upload must have minimum measurements of 180 x 180 pixels.

Cover photos come in at 851 x 315 pixels. While the minimum size is 399 x 150 pixels, images that are smaller than the optimum dimensions will get stretched and look awful.

Your profile photo is the one that’s seen most around the site (next to posts, comments, etc.), so it’s important that your choice works well as a small, standalone image. However, if you want to get creative by making your profile pic and cover image work together, note that your profile image displays 23 pixels from the left side and 210 pixels from the top of your cover photo.

If you’re all about fast load times, it’s worth noting that Facebook recommends your cover photo be an sRGB JPG file that’s 851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall and less than 100KB. If your image is logo- or text-based, then Facebook suggests using a PNG file to get higher quality results.

Twitter

Twitter displays profile photos really small, so it’s important to choose an image that works in miniature. Twitter also uses square profile pics, so be sure to scale yours appropriately before you upload it.

While the maximum file size for a Twitter avatar is 2MB, it will show only as 73 x 73 pixels on your profile page and a teeny 48 x 48 pixels in tweets.

However, if people click through to your profile and then click on your avatar, it will show up larger (as it will in some Twitter clients), so it’s worth uploading an image that will display bigger than the small, default sizes.

Twitter header photos can be up to 5MB in size. The recommended dimensions for these images are 1252 x 626 pixels. Bear in mind your Twitter account name, handle, bio, location and URL will all appear over your header image, so you need to consider choosing a photo that will work behind text and will not obscure the text.

Google +

Photos are a bit different on Google+, where the network crops profile photos as circles. You’ll need to consider what kind of image will work in a round format.

Your avatar is displayed 120 x 120 pixels on your profile, but not all of that will show up due to the round crop. With images showing up as small as 48 x 48 pixels in posts and just 28 x 28 in comments and other activity, this is another example of needing to choose a pic that will work well on a small scale.

The Google+ cover, or feature photo, is a tricky one, as it dynamically resizes depending on screen area. As far as measurements go, the minimum size is 480 x 270 pixels, and the recommended size is 960 x 540 pixels, but if you want your image to look good on large or retina displays, you’ll want to upload a photo that’s 2120 x 1192 pixels.

However, keep in mind that unless anyone takes the time to scroll up on the default desktop view, there is only a small area of the cover photo that will be seen on your profile — the very bottom.

YouTube

Since Google linked Google+ page identities with YouTube, your YouTube “channel icon,” or avatar, is linked to your Google+ profile photo.

YouTube offers detailed information on how to optimize your other channel imagery though, including downloadable templates to help.

Similar to Google+, your cover photo, or “channel art” as YouTube calls it, will auto-rescale to fit the size of screen on which you’re viewing a video. In order to get “optimal results on all devices,” YouTube recommends uploading a 2560 x 1440 pixel image (including a “safe area”).

The minimum display size for channel art is 1546 x 423 pixels, so you can be sure nothing within this area, such as text and logos, will be cut off.

LinkedIn

As a professional social networking site, LinkedIn has some official guidelines as to what kind of photo you can use. The site states that “a photo can be removed by LinkedIn if your profile image is not your likeness or a headshot photo,” so it’s best to stick to the basics.

With a max file size of 4MB, you can upload a square JPG, GIF or PNG. The default size for a LinkedIn avatar on your profile page is 200 x 200 pixels, but users can click to enlarge the image up to 450 x 450 pixels.

Company pages are a little different. The standard company logo displayed on LinkedIn pages is 100 x 60 pixels, and the square logo is 50 by 50 pixels. You can also upload a homepage cover photo-style image to a company page. The minimum recommended size is 646 x 220 pixels.

Image: Flickr, baldiri

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