While LinkedIn is at present the most popular social media network for professionals with approximately 135 million users, Facebook’s base of 800 million users seems to offer some potential competition for professional networking. There are already several networking-related applications on Facebook, but none seem to be as powerful as BranchOut for helping you expand your professional network building. I get asked a lot about BranchOut and whether or not it give LinkedIn any serious competition or not, so I thought this was a good time to introduce this to my readers as well as give my opinion for those of you that …
read more![Facebook Settles with FTC on Privacy Issue: What Does This Bode for Social Media Users and Businesses? [Analysis]](http://windmillnetworking.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Facebook-Privacy-FTC-Settlement-150x150.jpg)
Facebook has probably realized what the adage on great power coming with great responsibility really means with what it has gone through over the past year. The social media giant has had to deal with widespread outrage from hundreds of millions of users and a complaint by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on its allegedly deceptive privacy practices. But finally putting an end to the saga and perhaps effectively avoiding any onerous sanctions, Facebook reached a settlement with the FTC last week. The social network essentially agreed to the FTC’s terms of practicing transparency in implementing its privacy policies in …
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Social media is fascinating in that businesses and professionals are often using all of these websites for things they were never intended for. Although it feels as if Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the rest have been around forever, believe it or not quite a few of these sites came from humble beginnings with very different intents. From dorm rooms to couches, let’s look back to the history as to how the most popular social networks began – and perhaps learn some trivial knowledge that can help deepen our appreciation for these platforms.
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If you think of Facebook as just a fun way to keep up with old friends, think again. Facebook has turned into a major business tool. If you’re serious about your business, you should also be serious about making the most out of your fan page – and getting as many fans as possible. According to Facebook, the site has more than 500 million users! And, people spend more than 700 billion minutes on Facebook each month! Still think it’s a site that’s just for fun? Here’s how it can work for you – the more fans you have, the …
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Since Facebook is where Americans spend more time than anywhere else on the Internet, our needs as social media marketers as well as professionals to stay on top of the latest trends in 2010 regarding the social media gorilla are as important as ever. While I limited my similar top blog posts on Twitter and LinkedIn to 20, so many people had so much resourceful information to provide on FB that I felt the need to expand this blog post to include the top 30 most useful articles this year. Because Facebook gives anyone the ability to create a mini-web …
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LinkedIn and Facebook would seem to have very little in common going into 2011: One platform was created as a closed and trusted networking site for professionals while the roots of the other come from being an open “face book” of college students. While LinkedIn has built up a dominant presence in the hearts and minds of the professional demographic, Facebook is in the center of consumer culture and many a business who want to capture the hearts and money of us all. Professionals network on one platform while companies establish Pages on the other. Ask most companies where they …
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There are many tools that are available to companies in social media marketing, but one that you don’t hear about often is social gaming, especially when these games are played directly on popular social networking sites like Facebook. Farmers Insurance earlier this week announced a new campaign that would put their virtual airship on the screens of everyone playing the popular social game FarmVille, which was reported to be 80 million users earlier this year. I had the opportunity to interview Ryon Harms, the Director of Social Media for Farmers Insurance, and get his input on the significance of this …
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While everyone was talking about the new Facebook Places application last week, I wanted to wait until I had a chance to actually experiment with it myself and report firsthand back to you on my analysis. A little bit of historical perspective can’t hurt any analysis either: A few days in social media seems like a few months in real life. Now that a few days have passed and I’ve had a chance to take the Places application out for a test spin, I realize what Facebook is trying to do: Become the default social aggregator of your information at …
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Today’s guest blog post about social media strategy for local marketing utilizing Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare comes from someone I met Windmill Networking on My Blog Guest, AJ Wilcox. I asked AJ to write about the intersection of local Internet marketing and social media strategy, and he surpassed my expectations with this excellent blog post. AJ is the SEO Team Lead over at OrangeSoda, a local Internet marketing firm. He has been in love with Internet marketing for over 3 years, and has overseen over 2,000 SEO accounts. He is married with a 1 year old son and enjoys cars …
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Image by jyoseph via Flickr I often get asked about whether it makes sense to completely integrate Twitter Tweets with your LinkedIn Status Update, so that every tweet shows up on LinkedIn. Obviously there is no one correct answer for this as it depends on your objective and LinkedIn Brand. However, the question brings to mind a greater issue: How often should you update your social media status on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Your Blog?
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